


Baby Crazy

by MissGillette



Series: Tilted [4]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alpha Billy Hargrove, Alpha Nancy Wheeler, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Billy Hargrove Is a Scumbag, Breeding Kink, Class Differences, Comeplay, Cuckolding, Deception, Emotional Manipulation, Explicit Sexual Content, Knotting, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Omega Steve Harrington, Possessive Billy Hargrove, Self-Lubrication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:40:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24783247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissGillette/pseuds/MissGillette
Summary: Steve wants to start a family. Nancy feels the noose tighten around her neck. Billy plans for everything and nothing.-“Take the card, Miss Wheeler.” Billy flicks it a few more times. When Nancy looks down, he bets by her eyes going a little wider that she catches the words ‘breeding services’ and ‘stud’ below his name. Along with his pedigree, although that is abbreviated. From the deepest pit of his throat, he purrs, “Think about it.”She snatches the business card out of his hand with a thin, “I am not letting you… impregnate my omega! You must be out of your—”“That’s not what I’m suggesting,” he talks right over her, bored with her gnashing teeth and fiery eyes.Teeth tight, Nancy smooths her lips over them into a thin line. Her eyes hesitate to look away from him, from breaking the stare first, but she does it to glance over his card.“If that’s not what you’re implying with ‘stud services’ written under your name…”Billy shrugs and slips his thumbs into his belt loops. It’s a tight squeeze with a belt threaded through those loops.“Don’t have to knock the little darling up to turn him away from wanting pups.” Billy gives her a pointed look. “Just… scare him a little.”
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Series: Tilted [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1718029
Comments: 11
Kudos: 319





	Baby Crazy

**Author's Note:**

> Can you tell these "Tilted" stories are gradually falling more and more off the rails? Good. Billy's not a good person lol. Enjoy! =D Also no worries about pregnancy. There's no pregnancy in this fic. You'll see lol. Also played a little bit with class differences/minor dystopia. It's the old song and dance of omegas being second-class citizens, you know it.
> 
> My favorite Billy quote from this is: “Bring your boy with you. See if he plays nice.” Tell me what yours was in the comments.

Billy can’t know, supporting the weight of a stupidly drunk omega as he helps the poor fuck to the car his alpha already waits at, that this whole scene had started innocently enough. Just bedroom talk. Just Steve rambling without hearing himself with his knees in his ears as Nancy knotted him. Just the sort of bedroom talk between an omega and his alpha, even if Nancy only put a sort-of engagement ring on him so far and he responded to her calls like he has a mark on him, but he doesn’t because Nancy ‘isn’t ready yet, soon, I promise.’ But what had started as babbling bedroom talk morphed into earnest desire, something beyond a heat-of-the-moment fantasy until— 

“Nancy?”

Index finger pointed up, Nancy continued her phone conversation like Steve wasn’t there. Steve held his tongue as the conversation continued casually and glanced around to keep his mind off his nerves. Nancy’s office wasn’t as cold as it once was. Not with Steve here, sometimes her business partner Jonathan. They livened the place up from its modern furnishings so Nancy would have some softness around her. Pillows on the low couch along the windows. Rugs to muffle her heels when she paces. Photos of her family, graduating from college, vacation photos with Steve, a single portrait of Steve on her desk that was missing at that moment, and Steve stared where it should be as he wound himself tighter and tighter. It was now or never, that being the first day in a week Nancy was even home while he was awake, he had to tell her, couldn’t hold it in anymore…

“Nancy, I want a pup.”

Nancy’s next word cut off halfway through. Whoever was on the line stayed quiet, too.

Turning her head at a perfect angle, chin tense as she stared at him, she scolded, “Not right now, sweetie, I’m on the phone.”

“Are you even listening to me?” He tried not to let his voice waver in a little whine. She always gave him a look—yep, that look right there—when he whined. Because she didn’t like it. “Did you hear what I said?”

The person on the line kept talking as Nancy sighed, muted her end, and then said with a stern look, “We talked about you coming into my office when the door is shut, sweetie, I’m busy right—”

“You're always busy!”

Nancy’s eyes went a little wide, a little stern. Moving her mouth back to the phone and unmuting her side, she murmured, “I’ll call you back in five minutes.”

Her phone was dark as she left it on the desk, scooted back in her chair, and rose with all her grace. Patronizing look already on her handsome face, she walked towards Steve with a tiny smile. A smile he only saw when he was being silly about something. 

Hands reached up to cup his jaw, and Nancy simpered, “I’m sorry, Steve, it takes a lot of my attention running the social club and working. Are you lonely? You can always come with me when I—”

“So you weren’t listening,” he grunted.

“Steve,” she snapped. “What did we say about interrupting people when they’re talking?”

Snapping his name wasn’t as powerful as her commending him. But it cowed him all the same, had his shoulders sinking and his body curling down to more to match her height. To make himself smaller.

“That I need to wait until no one is speaking… B-but Nancy, this is really important.”

She dropped her hands with a sigh but did not step away from him. Instead, she wove her fingers between the tangled ball of his, forcing him to stop fidgeting. She stared down at their hands, his big like a puppy yet to grow into them easily covering hers as he clung to them.

Another sigh, and then, “You’re not ready.”

She couldn’t have hurt him more if she slapped him.

“What?” So crushed, so tiny like she ordered him to a corner. “What do you mean I’m not ready?”

Steely-blue eyes angled up at him, no smile this time, Nancy said, “You’re not ready. It’s a lot of work and pain. You can’t undo it once it’s done, and you would be responsible for that pup for the rest of its life. Pregnancy is dangerous too, especially with a female alpha. A lot can go wrong.” She leaned in to him even as he cowered back. “The morning sickness and the nausea that can come and go. Permanent damage to your body, permanent changes to your body, Steve. Not to mention all the things that can happen to you in the later stages and during birth.” He was fully cowed to her level then, and she leaned back with a tiny shake of her head. “What if you lose it? What then?”

It was enough to sew doubt into him. He kept the desire to himself after that. He didn’t stop thinking up baby names, didn’t stop planning themes for a nursery. But he stopped mentioning it during sex, although their intimate time sharply decreased after that anyway. It was around the time he began to suspect her affair with Jonathan that all his turmoil and rejection spilled over at the social club.

Across the way, having stepped in from smoking in the sprawling gardens out back, Billy heard the feisty omega always on Nancy Wheeler’s arm more than he saw the outburst. It was building all night, though. From the moment Billy brushed past her with a grimace more than a smile and made eyes at her omega like he did every time, he knew something was going to pop off. He just wasn’t counting on liquor loosening the seal on Steve’s lips and making him foam and mouth off like a champagne bottle. All while his voice cracked and shattered in everyone’s ears.

“I want a pup!” He nearly sobbed with a stomp of his foot, almost spilling himself in his expensive suit to the floor. He made a wild, frantic grab for the table he knocked into, glaring through tears up at Nancy who didn’t even blink after that first yell, and then shouted again, “Why won’t you give me a pup?!”

Billy was always a creature of opportune moments. Sensing a time when, if there was something in it for him, to insert himself into a situation that otherwise didn’t call for him. And he’s been watching and thirsting and throbbing over Nancy Wheeler’s omega since he met the uppity tart. So as color crept up from the neckline of Nancy’s evening dress and sank into the center of her face, some actual alpha rage from the Ice Queen, Billy did what he did best. Insert himself into that situation.

Nancy was perhaps the only one who even acknowledged Billy swooping up and taking Steve’s shaking body by his waist. The omega startled as Billy knew he would, leapt like an animal caught in a trap. Only iron had nothing on Billy’s grip on something he wanted, and Steve had no chance of escaping. Especially not when he so desperately needed an out of this awkward situation of his own making.

“Okay, darlin’, why don’t I give your alpha a hand and get you to your car, huh?” He shot a glowing grin to the audience, lightening the mood immediately with his golden presence. “Little too much bubbly, they can get so carried away, can’t they?”

That question he angled to Nancy, a subtle nod to the front doors of the banquet hall. Let’s go.

And that’s where Billy finds himself now. Not knowing the full story of what’s just happened. Not understanding why the moment Billy curled an arm around Steve and swept him away, staggering, that the omega broke down into angry, silent tears. Barely even breathes now over how wound up he is, fights for a breath between choking himself with screams. That tension writhes along Steve’s back where Billy’s hand burns him through his suit. Even though misery chokes Steve more than anything right now, Steve may yet go home and catch a whiff of him. And that’s exactly what Billy wants. Put the idea in Steve’s mind of an alpha who had touched him so gently and cared for him when they’re virtually strangers. Especially after he sews another suggestion into Nancy’s mind. If the universe will smile upon him, those two tendrils will twist up as one and meet in the middle. Exactly what he wants.

Not that this is their first time meeting, Jesus no. It’s Nancy’s social club. Literally the founder of it and organizer for the big events and charities. Billy only associates with it out of boredom and marks like Steve. Lonely omegas on the arms of alphas in a caste above them. Steve has the looks and softness of good breeding, but not the manners. He is ill-trained if his bad behavior Billy has observed again and again means anything. Not trained at all if his outburst tonight means anything.

He gets Steve in the car, has to peel his square hands off the omega, and then shoves the door shut with a whoop.

“What a night,” he tries casually, avoiding Nancy’s eyes and crossed arms at first. He meets them, though, never afraid of another thing on two legs, and drawls, “Trouble in paradise?”

They both glance to the omega currently curled up in a pitiful, drunk ball in the backseat of the black Mercedes.

But their eyes are on each other again in a flash. Billy pokes and prods the edge of Nancy’s obvious frustrations. And not the good kind. No, it wouldn’t be the good kind with Steve getting trashed and embarrassing her in front of everyone. If she had the good sort of frustration, that little tantrum wouldn’t have happened. So Billy knows he’s right. And so does Nancy.

He’s never given her any reason to trust him or put any sort of faith in him. They occupy the same class, status, and social club. That’s as far as their similarities go. How they feel about Steve is worlds apart. Billy knows that without a doubt. Because he leaves a hand on the car, palm tingling with Steve’s whimpers and bottled cries through the metal, and knows she feels nothing for him. No sympathy, no sorrow. Annoyance at him acting out and embarrassment for the public humiliation. Like the family pet jumped on someone and left mud behind.

A great, heaping sigh drains the angles right out of Nancy’s shoulders. She even unlocks her teeth, although her chin still juts out when she gives him a glare.

“You can imagine from what you heard.”

Billy tips his chin up a little.

“Baby crazy?”

She glances to the blacked-out rear windshield.

“A bit.”

Billy nods again, slips his hand into his front pocket, and pulls out his wallet. Inside, he has two stacks of business cards. One for actual business with his desk phone number on it and company email address. White cardstock, black text. Plain. The others are slippery, silky soft and almost creamy white. This is one he pulls out for Nancy, flicks to her between his index and middle finger. She stares at it like he’s encroached on her territory.

“I could be of use, if you want.”

Nancy’s face hardens right back up, and she almost sneers at the business card. Her arms cross over her chest, and Billy can’t help himself when he nudges the card closer to her.

“Whatever you’re selling, I’m not interested.”

“No charge,” he says on the heels of her words. “Take the card, Miss Wheeler.” He flicks it a few more times. When she looks down, he bets by her eyes going a little wider that she catches the words ‘breeding services’ and ‘stud’ below his name. Along with his pedigree, although that is abbreviated. From the deepest pit of his throat, he purrs, “Think about it.”

She snatches the business card out of his hand with a thin, “I am not letting you… impregnate my omega! You must be out of your—”

“That’s not what I’m suggesting,” he talks right over her, bored with her gnashing teeth and fiery eyes.

Teeth tight, Nancy smooths her lips over them into a thin line. Her eyes hesitate to look away from him, from breaking the stare first, but she does it to glance over his card.

“If that’s not what you’re implying with ‘stud services’ written under your name…”

Billy shrugs and slips his thumbs into his belt loops. It’s a tight squeeze with a belt threaded through those loops.

“Don’t have to knock the little darling up to turn him away from wanting pups.” Billy gives her a pointed look. “Just… scare him a little.”

Nancy’s steely eyes make the rounds again. Up to Billy, to the car, to the offer in her hands, and then back to Billy. She straightens the hunch in her shoulders and rises to her full, regal height. From the little clutch purse tucked under her arm, she retrieves her cellphone. She snaps a shot of Billy’s personal card, returns it to him, and then trades her phone for a business card case of her own. Billy takes her card and pockets it. Internally, Billy’s salacious grin would rival the Cheshire Cat’s.

“Let’s schedule a call later when we can discuss—”

“I was thinking coffee,” Billy suggests with a charming grin. One that would probably work on Mrs. Wheeler, no matter her status or age. “Bring your boy with you. See if he plays nice.”

Of course Billy would rather skip to exactly what he wants. No firm plans, no, that sews the seed of failure. Needing to stick to firm, precise plans. No, he can wing it, does his best work on the fly. Nothing is more on the fly than meeting a stressed, sexless alpha and her bratty omega. They’re all the same, and Nancy will buckle just like all the alphas before her.

  
  


Sitting in the cafe they’d agreed to, Billy is fully prepared for Steve to not show up at all. Maybe throwing his mouth around at home too much and getting put in the corner for it. Or whatever punishment Nancy deems fit. Maybe she spanks him. Billy adjusts his legs, actually crosses one at the knee, to hide his stake in that hypothetical. Prepare for everything and also nothing, and things will go the way they were meant to go.

So Steve trailing a respectful, customary three steps behind Nancy, eyes down and clearly checked out, bodes will for Billy. This is meant to be. Billy’s confidence only grows when, unbeknownst to Nancy, Steve’s amber gaze finds Billy in the crowd before they even reach him. Billy cleans up no matter where he is, letting his hair down with a tight t-shirt and tighter jeans. Billy almost lets a thrill run through him when he shifts his legs wider apart just under the table, drawing Steve’s eyes to powerful thighs, maybe even the V of his legs. He thinks that only because some color drips across the bridge of Steve’s nose. Oh yes, this is definitely meant to be.

Tensions are already high when Nancy and Steve drop into chairs around Billy. Only through years of schooling his face does Billy not grin when Steve hesitates for where to sit. Glued directly to his alpha’s side? Or in the chair closer to Billy? Nancy is busy fiddling with her hair and smoothing her clothes down all proper like when Billy lifts deep eyes up to Steve. And catches the omega staring. Steve tears his gaze away with a subtle tremor. Not so subtle that Billy doesn’t catch it, tastes in the back of his throat. A spike of anxiety. Poor, little thing. What argument had gone on before they left or during the ride here to shake Steve so badly? Billy counts it as a win for him when Steve drops slowly into the chair to Billy’s right. Exactly where Steve belongs.

“So,” Nancy begins with her hands in her lap, water glass filled by a busboy without a glance to him or a word of thanks. Steve is better about it, appreciative in that real way that doesn’t come from upper crusts. Billy likes him more already. “About what we began to discuss Friday night…”

It’s Sunday, now. Brunch. A quiche half eaten on a plate beside Billy speaks for him. This isn’t the sort of coffee shop where someone comes around and takes your order. A cute beta skitters around this morning with a water pitcher, clears tables the moment they’re abandoned. But otherwise, food service is at the counter. Billy takes his pause to glance between the two of them. If Nancy isn’t planning on at least ordering a courtesy coffee, then maybe she’s only come to tell him off. Can’t have that.

Steve provides the perfect distraction. Mostly because the omega nurses his water so numbly he doesn’t stop himself from staring at Billy’s plate. The words could not be more plainer on his face, and Billy hums as he twists in his chair towards Steve. Disregarding his fellow alpha.

“How you feeling this morning, darlin’?” Billy cocks his head just so to meet Steve’s eye level. He doesn’t miss the way Steve flashes a look at Nancy lightning quick after matching Billy’s glance. Interesting. “Wild night Friday, huh? Hopefully you weren’t hungover too badly.”

He says as much with a wink. Steve huffs and frowns at him, glances away again. But the color on his pretty cheeks is honest. Color honest and eyes shy when Steve blinks somewhere level with Billy’s jaw instead of looking straight into his eyes. Not that Steve could.

“I’m fine, I guess, mister…”

He doesn’t think for a second Steve doesn’t know his name, but he drawls with sugar and butter, “Just Billy is fine.” Thoughtful frown on his lips, he nods to his abandoned plate and asks, “You eat yet?”

That gets a much larger startle out of Steve. His knees smack the bottom of the table, rattling glass and dishware. Nancy’s hands cup around the edge of the table almost immediately, but she spares Steve a stern look anyway. In his lap, Steve’s arms sort of cradle his stomach. Interesting.

“N-no, sir, but it’s fine. I’m fine.”

“Nonsense,” Billy says light, easy.

He rolls his weight onto one thigh while pawing his wallet out of his back pocket—back pocket in jeans, front pocket in a suit—and flicks through bills. All the while Nancy stares at the side of his head like she can will him to spontaneously combust.

“Here, darlin’, at least go get something to drink.” He holds out a twenty Steve’s way with a waggle of his eyebrows. “And it’s just Billy, Steve. No formalities here.”

No mention of how Billy knows Steve’s name. Of course they’ve never spoken directly to each other. That would be improper at the social club without Nancy introducing them. Not that Billy is about proper, but he doesn’t want a target on his back as a homewrecker either. This isn’t her stuck-up fucking social club, though. This is practically the jungle, and Billy has the jugular of his prey in his sights. Just take the bait, sweetheart, that’s it…

“Steve,” Nancy warns, a little long, a lot tense.

Steve shies away at that tone despite his hand twitching up from holding himself around his stomach. Doe eyes snap to Nancy’s across the table. Maybe he can look her in the eyes, especially when she’s almost commanding him, but Billy guesses Steve stares somewhere near her mouth, too. Afraid of eye contact? Uncomfortable with it? Very interesting…

Steve must make a decision, though. Because his cherry lips screw up in a frown as he takes the bill from Billy, stands, and marches to the cash register. Well, to the queue for the register, which works out fine as Billy relaxes into his chair. This will give him and the Ice Queen time to talk privately. Billy knocks his plate close again and snaps his fork through a bite of quiche. He stares right at the pink in the center of Nancy’s face while chewing with his mouth shut. For once.

“Mind telling me what that was about?” She snaps. “Or were you just raised in a barn?”

“Cool your jets.” Billy rolls his eyes and lets the awful sound of him smacking his chops reach their ears. At least until Nancy looks away, disgust not too pretty on her. “If your boy won’t accept a damn coffee from another alpha, he won’t take a knot, either. I’ve been doing this for a long time, Miss Wheeler, have a little trust. From one professional to another.”

“A professional cuckoo is what you are.”

Billy doesn’t let that rile him up. He hasn’t explained his plan yet. That and the outcome—Steve being his—are the only things set in stone about this whole scenario. Blue eyes keep a bead on Steve in the queue, chatting up another omega under the watchful eye of her alpha standing just in front of them. Steve practically glows now that he’s away from the table. Away from Nancy and her thundercloud. Poor thing.

Eyes back on said thundercloud, Billy explains, “Like I said Friday night, you don’t have to knock him up to get him off this baby fixation of his. It’s natural that he wants pups, did you really expect anything different?”

“He’s never wanted them before.”

“Unfortunately for you, he seems to think he does now.” Billy carves off another neat section of quiche, doesn’t talk with his mouth full when he adds, “You just need to convince him otherwise. That he doesn’t know what he wants, because what he wants is painful and scary, and even when he’s stuck in the thick of it, you can’t help him out of it.”

“I tried explaining to him—”

Billy grimaces and shakes her words away with his free hand.

“Nah, not good enough. It’s never good enough to try and talk an omega down from a pup. They’ll talk themselves in circles, blah blah blah, baby this, pup that, until they go a little crazy. You don’t want him acting up, do you? Getting cozy with the wrong alpha at the social club, huh?”

With a flick of her eyebrows and a bob of her head, Nancy spits, “Like you?”

“Not like me.” Billy drops his fork again and wipes at his mouth and moustache with a napkin. A jerk of his head sends his hair back behind his ears and face. He’d rather not touch his hair with his fingers a little greasy. “Because I won’t be doing anything without your permission.”

“I can see that working really well.”

Billy hates phrasing it like that, but anything to get these high-strung alphas off their high horses. Flattery goes a long way. Deferring dominance more so. She’ll play right into his hands by being a bitch like this.

Billy offers her a shrug and turns his eyes back on Steve, at the counter ordering now. So cute and bright when he smiles. There is a genuine thread of kindness in him. Maybe his whole cloth is kindness. He’s a sweet omega.

Still watching Steve, Billy says, “I’ve done this all before. Busy alpha or an alpha with a career and no time for kids gets an antsy omega on their hands. Does just about everything but breed the little thing to try and appease them, that biological clock just winding up tighter, tick-tock tick-tock. Suddenly”—his eyes flash to hers, unafraid of her posturing and stony face—“he has all the control. Is the one dictating your emotions and thoughts, no longer relieving your stress.” Billy leans towards her with an arm resting bent and relaxed between them. “Now he is your stress, because now all you’re thinking about is how to get him to stop talking about a damn pup.”

She knows he knows, now, that she’s already at the end of her rope. How long has this gone on? Has Steve asked for years, now? Threatened to leave? Asked for a separation? They’re not mated, never will be if Nancy treating Steve so poorly means anything. She keeps him around for something. Billy recognizes game when he sees it, bets Nancy just likes controlling Steve. Likes bossing him around and ordering his life like she would a doll. Because Steve probably sucks at it. Or likes to defer control to someone else. That wouldn’t surprise Billy at all, is the sort of vibe he got from Steve during all those longing glances from afar. Longing on his part, longing for something sweet to crush under his teeth like a plump cherry. He made sure Steve never saw him all those times. 

Shivering or maybe shaking herself, Nancy loosens that stick up her ass. Even brings her arms down from her chest to rest in her lap. She’s facing it, now, a reality where Steve won’t stop bringing up babies and hounds her about it. Not that Steve necessarily will, but the mere suggestion of it sends alphas like her running. Billy can’t exactly blame her. He fucking hates kids, would rather step in front of a bus than have one of his own. Which is exactly why he does what he does. She needs some more convincing, though. It takes a lot for an alpha to hand their omega over on a silver platter for the knot of another. Because that’s exactly what it’s going to take. They don’t have much more time to discuss this, either.

Billy leans into his arm on the table and says lowly, “So, what’s there left to do? Certainly can’t knock him up, give him what he wants, you’d be right where you are now, only with two mouths crying for you.”

Nancy pales somehow even more than her snow-white skin already is. True panic settling in at the idea. Cornering her, no escape.

“So…” She has to swallow a few times to get the tremor out of her voice. Her eyes are just a hair too wide when they meet Billy’s waiting for her. “So where do you factor in on all this?”

“That’s the easiest part in all this for you. You do nothing while I put the fear of pregnancy and child birth in him. Not literally, of course.”

“Explain.”

Instead, Billy asks, “Do you have him on birth control? Blockers?”

“Both,” she says with a modicum of annoyance. Like he’s stupid for thinking otherwise. “Why?”

Billy leans back in his chair and considers Steve with a plastic cup of some iced coffee nonsense and a plate. He’s grabbed the same quiche Billy did. Mirroring. Perfect, darling little omega, what a treat.

“Take him off the blockers so he’ll go into heat, but leave the birth control alone. Tell him you took him off both, that you two are going to try for a pup.” He levels a bored look at her. “But obviously don’t, I don’t think I need to tell you that.” Blue eyes return to Steve, if only to eat up every candid second. “Try during the first heat that hits him and a few more times after that. Let him get excited about it, buy pregnancy tests, go to baby name websites, all that shit. And when he’s not pregnant after all that, bring him to me the next time he’s in heat.”

He already feels her hackles rising.

“Again, Miss Wheeler, I will remind you that a pup is not an end result of this little scheme of ours. You’ll bring him to me under the guise of stud services, I will provide those services with Steve none the wiser, and then you provide him with a positive pregnancy test.”

“How exactly—”

“Not my problem,” he drawls. “Make him think he’s pregnant and watch his brain do the rest of the work. If he expects morning sickness, fatigue, all that, then it will happen. Spiking his breakfast with emesis pills never hurts either. After a while when he’s miserable and wanting an out, tell him he’s not pregnant, that you did this to show him he’s not ready, and he’ll let it go. Works every time.” More to himself he mutters, “Silly omegas get it in their heads that they see pregnancy on TV and read it in their little novels and think it’s a walk in the park…”

Steve is turning their way, Billy appreciating his green sweater with a polo under it and comfortable jeans, when Nancy hisses, “You expect me to drug him?”

Lips barely moving as Steve draws near, Billy says, “It beats a real pup, don’t you think? Do we have a deal?”

It strokes Billy’s ego and puffs his chest that Steve regards him first when he reaches the table. Smile shy and eyes coy, not meeting Billy’s but close enough. As thanks for providing for him even in this small, casual way. Billy accepts the change from his twenty, deliberately brushes his fingers over Steve’s during the handoff. If Nancy catches it, Billy pays no mind to any reaction she may give. He’s all eyes on Steve at the way he flusters, tries to hide it with huff and roll of his eyes. The barest graze of their skin hadn’t lasted longer for anything else, and Billy relaxes in his chair to free Steve of his clout.

When Steve turns faithful eyes back to Nancy, his brightness drains out. It’s only his love for her—blind, idiotic love—that binds them together. Steve has no idea all the cards are in his hand, Nancy left only with the queen of hearts and the old maid. Certainly nothing on Nancy’s end of this relationship glues them together. Maybe she’d loved him at one point. Or thought she loved him, thought he was the right choice. Billy will help her out of that proverbial corner. He’ll take Steve right off her hands. He will, because the universe wants him to have this. And when he meets Nancy’s pursed lips and narrowed eyes, she gives him the barest nod.

It’s the longest two months of Billy’s life. Whenever he catches word that Nancy will be attending whatever event is at the social club, he’s there. Because if Nancy is there, Steve is there. And isn’t he just stunning? Billy watches as he always does from clear across the room or the second floor balconies on high. The darling omega is all sweet smiles and lively. Steve almost never hangs on Nancy’s arm, more content to space out three steps behind her. But ever since that messy Friday, since their talks of cuckooing, Steve has been inseparable from his alpha. Whenever Nancy even tries to take custody of her arm, Steve is careful to slip his back around it.

Billy almost cackles madly when Nancy loses her patience with that and paws Steve away, pleads up at him to go get her a drink. He’s off and away with a little hop, eager to please. Poor darling. Probably hopes he’d caught on her last knot and is just too early to tell. Steve certainly holds himself like he’s pregnant, swaying a little on his feet and keeping an arm tucked low across his belly. Billy could just laugh himself sick. Truly baby crazy, that one. Billy wonders, nursing a beer with grinning lips, if Steve has taken over one of the bedrooms in her apartment. Or set a little something up in their room. For the baby. He laughs into the glass neck of his beer, a deep thing so amused with itself.

Those moments at the social club last Billy until an email from Nancy. An email of all things, rather than what a normal person would do and just fucking text him. Whatever, no matter. Nancy spells out a schedule of Steve’s next heat. Spanning next weekend, what luck, he’d been about to rub his dick raw from thinking about it. If only Billy could convince her to just leave the needy omega with him. Alone. Before even opening her message, Billy knows that’s not on the table, glares at his phone when he reads her stipulation below Steve’s schedule of fertility.

‘I will be present in the room the entire time you and Steve are together.’

That’s not a voyeur thing—again, Billy recognizes game when he sees it—but a control thing. Petty. Well, to him it’s petty and he hates how the alphas of these omegas he knocks up absolutely insist on watching. Even though every single one of them can’t take it. Some of them are aroused enough to make things interesting on the air. Enough to calm their nervous omegas into opening up for him and writhing on his knot like they want to. But sometimes it’s more harm than it's worth, the alpha’s distress too much for the omega to ignore. Even in heat and gagging for it. Which had been the whole point of the little coffee date between them. Billy knows Nancy won’t be a distraction. He’s a stronger alpha than her.

‘Enjoy the show,’ he fires back, almost thinks about telling her to bring a washcloth to mop herself up with after, but he decides against it. The moment has passed.

So it’s a grueling wait all week until that precious moment. Billy makes the hotel arrangements, too controlling for his own good to ever allow the other alpha to do this. Even though some insist. He has his favorite hotels around the city and rents from them reliably. Because he knows which ones have walls thicker than one-ply toilet paper and knows which ones won’t ask him questions. Things tend to get loud once the loopy omegas arrive, even if they’re brought to him unawares. Like Steve.

This is less common than the alternative. Most alphas discuss the stud services with their omegas and sometimes even let them have a say in the decision. But Billy is banking on Nancy being too proud to tell Steve the truth. She may give him a glance, the peek of a blind man experiencing a temporary miracle, but she won’t divulge all. The betrayal would be too much for a trusting, faithful omega like Steve. That Nancy could not give him a pup, a pup he wants specifically with her. So a stud is good enough, right? As long as Steve has his baby, that’s all that matters. Doesn’t matter he’ll be hanging off another alpha’s knot plump and full of Billy’s come. To know what’s in store for him would break Steve’s heart. Will when Nancy tells him it’d all been a ruse. Since Nancy is the one in charge of Steve’s birth control, the one who’d lied to him.

Billy has probably paced the length of the suite he’s rented a hundred times when Nancy calls him. He makes her wait four rings, sure her teeth are grinding away, and then answers.

“I’m on my way with Steve. He’s ready. You’re at the Crowne Plaza, yes?”

“Room 801,” he adds, like she hadn’t read his email he sent this morning.

“Good.” And she hangs up.

He won’t let that slight upset him. Nancy has no power between them, so she takes it the only way she can. Not unlike a teenager just wanting things their way. Needing the last word. Billy snorts at the thought and flicks his phone across a table where some papers lie waiting for her. Just a few legal odds and ends he has every alpha sign. They’re more binding for mated pairs, the omega basically an extension of the alpha, but it’s a better safety net than nothing. In case the pregnancy terminates, or they terminate it, the baby is born with defects, all that. Covering his ass. Not that any of that matters, but at least he’ll have Nancy’s consent in writing. This contract is just missing the fee schedule, not that Nancy couldn’t afford him. Everything is ready, his hair down and him comfortable in sweatpants and a t-shirt, when a knock sounds.

He probably should have gone down to the lobby and helped them up. Steve is a big guy for an omega, a head taller than Nancy and easily weighs fifty pounds more than her. So the splotchy indignation on her face is understandable. Billy does not sympathize when he takes Steve’s weight off her side and shoulders, but he understands. She’s out of breath when she follows him inside the suite and nudges the door shut. It slams with the hinge automatically drawing it closed, and Steve whimpers into Billy’s shoulder. Already, a slim hand shaking and weak paws at his chest. He almost purrs under that touch, what with how ripe Steve is.

Whistling above Steve’s fluffy hair, Billy regards Nancy over his shoulder and boasts, “Wet one, ain’t he?”

Arms crossed over her chest already, she snaps, “It’s only his second heat in five years, so it’s hitting him harder than normal.”

That could make things easier for Billy or more challenging. Depending on what sort of heat Steve has. If he’s mindless and more like a doll than a person, that would work. If he’s feisty and grabby, resistant to anyone but his alpha, that’s a problem. The universe has not led him astray yet. Billy hasn’t believed in prayer for years but almost wants to. Anything to make sure the scales are tipped in his favor. He’s controlled every damn aspect he could until this point. Exhaling hard through his nose to run Steve’s sweetness out, Billy hikes Steve higher on his hip and drags the omega into the joined bedroom, Nancy hot on their heels. 

Billy is quick to bark, “I left some papers for you on the little table out there. Sign them or get out.”

“I don’t sign anything without reading it or my lawyer present.”

Billy is already shoving Steve to the bed, smirking while he watches the omega bounce with a giggle. He won’t go further than this despite wanting to tear Steve’s clothes off. Whoever’d dressed him made smart choices. Big sweater that’s comfortable and warm for when he gets chills, sweatpants even looser than Billy’s. Easy to kick off even if Steve is completely gone and uncoordinated. He’s not there, yet, blinks big eyes up at Billy, eyebrows coming together all soft with recognition. Mindless to Nancy doing whatever in the suite behind him, Billy reaches a hand down to Steve’s and pets his fingers over the omega’s. Steve grasps him and doesn’t let go, gives him a tiny whine. Help me.

“Not long now,” Billy rumbles too low for Nancy to hear. But Billy’s ears pick up her grumbling at a pen that won’t write. Signing his get-out-of-jail-free card. “Not long now, darlin’, just a little bit longer.”

Steve tries to pick up his head. Maybe to see Nancy, maybe to look at himself. Something. But Billy’s towering form blocks out the bedroom doorway. And Steve is too weak to get far anyway. He lifts his head for all of a few seconds before it plops back to the bed. He has the nerve to squirm and giggle, playing like he’s done something cute. It’s all gentle amusement to Billy, the softest he’s felt in a long time. Well, soft in his heart, because of course the longer Steve is here, the more the ripeness of him soaks into the room. It’s in Billy’s mouth, his nose, deeper inside him. It will cling to every inch of him and the room. He’ll have to leave a bigger tip for the cleaning staff. They’re going to need a lot of scent neutralizer to get this room clean. 

Earlier, Billy had dragged a chair in here from the main room of the suite. So the Ice Queen will have somewhere to sit. If Billy had his way, Nancy would be at street level, climbing back into whatever car drove them here. But he won’t be getting his way, not yet, so he set the chair all the way by the door. Mostly so if Nancy doesn’t reposition it, she’ll have a shot up his ass and his balls swinging. And that’s about it, because he doesn’t want her to look at Steve. Doesn’t want Steve to look at her, more importantly. Especially not if Steve panics out of confusion right at the beginning. Because he has no idea what’s about to happen.

Nancy is a curl of cool air at his back. It sends his hackles rising, but he schools the snarl away.

“Close the door. More walls and doors between us and the hallway, the better. He loud?”

A sigh.

“Yes.”

“May as well cover all our bases and turn the TVs on, too. I’ll get this one in here.”

“You know, I didn’t bring Steve here as a favor.”

Billy snatches up the remote from the nightstand, chuffed Steve turns his head all the way around to watch him no matter where he is, and flicks the TV on. This is just a petty power grab for Nancy. He’s seen it and deflected it many times from other alphas. She’s already at a disadvantage by not being in her territory, and now she has an alpha she doesn’t like bossing her around. Billy would get a little rough around the edges, too. But fuck her, he’s not giving her any credit.

“Yea, me either. So you can take your attitude and fuck off or just do what I say.” He knows she’s paused just outside the bedroom door. Rolling his eyes, he regards her tight expression and adds, “If someone interrupts or comes knocking for a noise complaint, it might freak Steve out. Strangers being around him when he’s vulnerable. This isn’t rocket science, you know.”

This hotel has never reported an issue to him before. And he’s fucked his fair share of omegas here. As part of his services and in his personal life. It’s a nice hotel. And he likes them loud.

Nancy finds it in herself, maybe sewn into her deep dread over Steve and pups, and does as she’s told. Not without attitude and stomping and huffing, but she does it anyway. Billy stands facing the rest of the suite until an impatient, garbled whine draws him around. Steve has his hands under him in the bed, pushing to sit up on his ass. He gets as far as kicking his feet, sandals flying off, until he finds the floor, finds purchase. And then Billy is on him. Steve’s head snapping up to look at him, meeting blue eyes for the first time, steals Billy’s thunder.

The bedroom door closes with Billy’s hand in Steve’s hair. Petting him and scooping the wave of his hair off his forehead. Steve murmurs nonsense to himself, tenor curling around his whine, and leans his hand into Billy’s touch. Perfect. Billy shuffles that much closer until the edge of the bed is flush to his knees. Nancy doesn’t make a sound as she sits, but the chair sort of rasps when she shuffles in it. She hasn’t moved it from beside the door. Also perfect. This is all going so well. Grin dulling a little, hand coming to a stop in Steve’s hair, Billy wonders at what point it’ll all go tits up.

Steve tries to get a head start on that. Apparently, Billy petting his hair isn’t enough. Billy gets a peek at the sort of omega Steve is in heat: grabby, needy, bratty. When Steve goes to sit up more, Billy takes his hand away to stop him. But Steve just huffs and gives him a tiny glare, how dare you stop, and he makes a grab for Billy’s hand. It’s adorable and sweet. Not what Billy is interested in right now.

“Uh uh, not happening,” he says with a grin. “Get down.”

He nudges Steve by a shoulder, and the omega goes beautifully. Not the same drop and bounce as the first time, but slowly connecting with and unfurling on the bed like a flower opening. Steve arches his chest off the bed when he’s down and lets out a strained moan. The poor omega, his clothes must be bothering his skin. They are smart choices, the sweater and sweatpants, but even silk would be too much for Steve right now. Billy does not request permission from Nancy or even look at her when he hikes a knee up on the bed to grab Steve's hips. To undress him.

The sweater is the first to go, Steve’s hair messy and fluffy when his head is finally free. Billy doesn’t pause while reaching for the rest. No underwear under his grey sweats. Excellent. Billy pays no mind to Steve’s pretty cock springing free and wet, smacking into his belly. But Steve does, trying to touch, and Billy is quick to pop the back of Steve’s hand. Nothing hard, not to punish. More sound than anything. Just to warn the omega off, and Steve recoils appropriately.

“Not for you,” Billy scolds lightly. He holds the stern expression until Steve cowers some, and then lets an easier smile take its place. “Gonna be a good omega for me?”

When his fingertips graze down a boney calf, Billy expects Steve to recoil. To curl his legs up like a shy caterpillar and maybe roll away from him. Wouldn't be the first time. Billy can’t truly blame any omega who recoils from him. Strange alpha bursting with hormones and power, touching them when they’re at their most vulnerable moment. They usually can’t see their alpha during the process. The omegas under him recoiling is almost a guarantee until they warm up to him. Some never do, and that’s difficult for everyone except Billy. He’s not above holding a struggling omega down to get the job done. It’s fun in a slick, terrible sort of way. He almost wants that with Steve, but knows Steve will be anything but the typical omega. Because he pleads up at Billy with big eyes and shifts his foot to touch Billy’s leg.

More interested than ever before and humming, Billy slips back off the bed to attend to his own clothes. Nancy is a vague blip in his radar, only because his back is to her, but she won’t be a problem. She’ll sit there until she can’t stomach Steve wailing on his dick anymore and either tune them out—much like Steve checks out at the social club—or better yet she’ll get up and walk into the other room. Billy does not make concrete plans or hopes. That would set him up for failure. So he keeps his heavy gaze on the creeping flush in Steve’s face while he whips his shirt off and kicks his sweatpants away. He’s not as hard as Steve, but the bob of his shaft draws hungry eyes to him. Perfect. 

“Ready or not, here I come,” he says with a grin. Steve almost sits up to meet him, hands grabbing for him, but Billy pets him right back to the bed. “Uh uh, what did I say? Get down.”

Steve’s next exhale rushes out of him with attitude, and he reaches for Billy’s body anyway. Bold, bolder than an omega ought to be when slim fingers try to reach between Billy’s legs. Even if Steve is just curious, he needs to know his place. Billy’s growl is more annoyed than powerful when he snatches Steve by both wrists and squeezes the joints until bones shift under his palms. Any confidence that had encouraged that boldness in Steve peters right out when he flinches and tries to fight Billy, tugging on his wrists. Billy lets him struggle for as long as the omega’s feeble strength will hold out. When Steve relents, breathless and almost baring his throat, Billy guides those naughty hands back to the bed. He presses them there to drive the point across that he means business, catching Steve’s eyes for a blink. It’s enough.

“We can do this the hard way, darlin’, I don’t care if I have to hold you down.” Pressure on Steve’s wrists returns, and Steve groans with his head turned away, eyes shut. “But it doesn’t have to be that way. Be a good boy for me, yea?”

Shuffling behind him, attitude, and Nancy speaks up, “He can’t understand you. He’s nonverbal when he’s like this.”

Scoffing, Billy climbs fully between Steve’s legs and finally releases his wrists. It’s a bit of a struggle, then, to tug Steve’s sweater off. It may be too cold in here for Steve—he certainly shivers the moment he’s naked—but he’ll need clean clothes to leave in, and there’s nothing else here for him to wear. Billy tosses the sweater to the floor with the rest of their clothes and then positions himself to blanket Steve in warmth. Knees sunk in the bed between Steve’s spread legs and forearms caging his head, Billy perches above him and just watches him for a spell. To lie on top of him right now would be too much. Steve is not shy right now by any stretch of the word. Billy would just rather this go smoothly, would rather not overwhelm Steve and force him. But he’s handling this better than other unaware omegas. He even perks up and returns Billy’s nuzzle when the alpha rubs his scent into Steve’s jaw. A little at a time so that Steve will get used to him. Their little coffee date hadn’t been a waste. 

Nuzzling Steve more and sharing the smile that tugs at his pretty face, Billy murmurs lowly to him, “See? I don’t have to hurt you. I can be real nice about this.”

Another frustrated noise from Nancy, and Billy acknowledges this one with a glance over his shoulder. It tickles him that Steve gives a soft whine, missing him.

“Do you need something?” He drawls, bored with her already.

Incredulous, Nancy shakes her head and asks, “Did you not hear what I said? It’s pointless talking to him right now, he can’t understand.”

“I heard you just fine, Miss Wheeler.” He turns back to Steve and kisses his forehead. For behaving. He mutters a deep, “Good boy,” and then continues for Nancy, “Just because he’s nonverbal doesn’t mean he can’t understand. And even if he’s so far gone he can’t understand the words, he’ll understand tone. Maybe you shouldn’t have had him on blockers so much so you could spend heats with him and get to know him better.”

It’s a risk, poking her like that. She could easily just snatch Steve up and storm out of here. Not that Steve would be happy about that, because the omega already takes it upon himself to scent Billy on his own and mouth soft kisses to his jaw. 

“It’s different when you live with one,” she snaps, a feeble excuse. “It’s not easy dropping your life for a few days to take care of another person’s every need. Not that you would know.”

Billy just hums at that, too focused on Steve to truly care about her bullshit. She has no idea what she’s wasted all these years. Steve may have his faults that Billy isn’t aware of—yet—but how can she deny this perfect creature? Loopy and adorable, smiling up at him when he tunes back into what’s happening. So trusting. So comfortable with him already. Their chemistry must be even better suited to each other than Billy has thought all along. No fear lurks in Steve’s eyes. Only playfulness when Billy nips his ear and Steve blows cool air back in his. A purr gets Steve’s head up and away, giving his throat to Billy. Billy’s skin is rougher from shaving every day, but if Steve minds the grit, he doesn’t whine about it. In fact he coos so light in Billy’s ear that it coaxes a chuckle out of him.

“Feeling good, darlin’?”

Steve nods and turns his head back to blink up at Billy. He gives a noise, something caught between a grunt and a moan, and wiggles under him. In the corner of his vision, Billy spies the omega’s hands lifting from the bed. Billy looks at them deliberately so Steve knows he’s caught and then flicks an eyebrow up at him. Amusement cackles in Billy’s head when Steve’s expression crumbles a little. Good. He knows he’s not supposed to reach for things. He’s meant to lie here and be dotted on. Still, he craves touch and closeness and cannot fight how he wants to return Billy’s caresses. So Billy keeps that pointed look on Steve when slim fingers reach up, so slow and careful, to touch the curl always falling on Billy’s forehead.

Letting his chuckle out, Billy bows back down and paints lippy kisses down Steve’s jaw, murmurs above his lips, “It’s okay, you can touch me. You’re being so good for me, aren’t you?”

Steve’s reply is wrapping both arms around Billy’s neck and tugging him all the way down. Their chests collide, knocking a grunt out of Billy, and then his face is full of Steve’s hair and pale throat. A whine tickles his ear, please, and Billy gives him a low purr back while pressing new kisses to new skin. Steve may not even be aware of how intimate this display is. Welcoming Billy to his neck so quickly, letting him kiss and lick and bite. He’s not even whining for Nancy instead or even trying to look at her, find her. Steve’s happiness and desire pour out of him to thicken the air between them, so he must be enjoying himself. He doesn’t have to enjoy this for Billy to continue. It just strokes the fire in him that wants to claim that ripeness that is surely making a wet spot in the sheets under them.

Throat aching from a held-back growl, Billy sinks his teeth around Steve’s pulse. And holds it. Steve bucks into his weight but has no hope of thrashing against it or freeing himself. Steve’s whines break out of the jail of his mouth and pants all high and fluttery in Billy’s ears. Such a lovely sound, so desperate with desire and a tinge of fear. Fear that the alpha on top of him will bite him for real, will mark him during a moment of vulnerability. Billy won’t go that far; Steve isn’t his yet. He’s already going about this the best way he can. So that Nancy will practically hand Steve to him after the reveal. So Billy bites harder until Steve goes completely slack under him. Long fingers rake useless nails over Billy’s back when his hands fall to the bed with the rest of him.

Sucking a little redness over the imprints of his teeth, Billy husks, “Good boy,” and then shifts down. He has to hush, “Shhh, I’m right here, you know I’m not going anywhere,” when Steve makes a scared whimper.

Like Billy will stop for anyone or anything at this point. Steve is far too potent under him for that. Nancy could come at him with fangs and claws and he wouldn’t stop. Won’t stop until Steve sobs under him, blissed out and full of knot like he needs. Billy had smelled it the moment he dragged Steve out of Nancy’s arms. More so now that a real alpha has him by the throat. Steve is more lucid than Nancy gives him credit. 

Pressing his teeth in the center of that heaving chest, Billy rumbles to him, “Gonna make a fucking mess outta you darlin’, won’t be able to get the stink off.”

Steve arches under him, offering himself, and shreds his voice with a loud whine. If Nancy scoffs in disgust, Billy doesn’t give her the time of day. Steve’s calls are all for him, and Billy’s are his in return. She doesn’t factor into their passion. His instincts won’t allow him to block her completely, not in a vulnerable state like this with his back to her. But he’ll dive down into Steve’s body and sounds, lick the electricity right off him. Billy smirks and chuckles when he rubs his scent all over the flat planes of Steve’s chest. He could hold some muscle if Nancy cared even a little bit about him. He doesn’t have to be soft all over. Billy won’t blame the puffy nipples on her, though. That’s all Steve and them together, part of his body getting ready to breed. An action Billy should fast track to. But he can’t help himself. He wants to taste everything Steve has to offer.

Steve’s next cry is so pretty in his ears that Billy wishes he could record it. Loud and shocked at first with lips sealed around his nipple and suckling, and then a soft coo when Billy doesn’t stop. He bites hard enough to hurt just as Steve relaxes under his mouth. That pops Steve’s chest right back up, arching into Billy’s touch. His chin smarts where Steve slams into it, but a hand peeled off the bed and flatted to Steve’s trembling belly settles the omega back down. Billy shuffles on top of Steve, sliding ever farther down his slim body, but doesn’t continue until both nipples are flushed and buzzing from his mouth. He flicks his tongue hard a few times over the other one just to knock delicious flinches out of Steve.

Billy hums to the needy whines Steve makes for him, smirks at how Steve fisted hands shake in the bed. He’s trying to be so good, to stay still and pliant for Billy. Billy sits up, letting cool air take his place, and loosens the shackles on his ravenous grin when Steve’s skin comes alive. All the peach fuzz on him stands up without Billy to keep him warm. Amber eyes are wet to the point of overflowing when they flutter open. A pout angles up at him. Why did you stop? Don’t you want me anymore? Come back.

“Aww, don’t look at me like that, pretty baby,” he simpers while scooping up Steve’s tense hands. He pets the backs of them with his thumbs until Steve’s knuckles stop bleaching bone-white. Each hand he lifts to his mouth, one at a time, and kisses those knuckles. All while staring down at Steve, watching his pout melt back into pleasure. “You know what I’m gonna do to you?”

White teeth scrape over Steve’s bottom lip. He doesn’t manage a nod, but he knocks his thighs wider apart. If only he had the strength left to bend them and curl them to his chest, opening himself for Billy to smell, taste, and touch. He will in due time, curls back over Steve to guide the omega’s hands above his head. Billy wishes for a belt or a tie, something, but he will have to force Steve into submission if he rebels. Crossing dainty wrists over each other above Steve’s head, Billy grips them with just one of his hands and presses them down, down, down.

“These stay here, understand?” A pause as he gives Steve a moment to grunt. He squeezes tighter until another noise pops out of Steve, this one flecked with pain. “You don’t wanna disappoint me, do you? You wanna be good for me, I know you do.”

Steve wiggles under him, bouncing himself up the bed like Billy is already fucking him. Soon enough. When Steve tips his head up to offer his throat again, the only way he knows how to tell Billy what he wants, Billy relents and sits back up. A fever sets alight under his skin, demanding action. Billy slips from his knees between Steve’s splayed legs to sit on his ass. Hopping closer, Billy ghosts rough hands up the insides of Steve’s shins, knees, and then his thighs. Steve coos to him with his head still thrown back. He’s pale and speckled all up and down, probably on his back too. Billy will flip him soon enough, wants to enjoy this side of the omega first. May as well get an orgasm out of the way lest Steve blow his eager load while the getting is good. 

Hands firm and flat on the soft insides of Steve’s thighs, Billy hovers over him long enough to bite kisses down the center of him. From just above the dip of his navel and down to where a thick treasure trail should be. Billy finds the evidence of it, of follicles with their resident hair ripped clear. Nancy must have him waxed. She’s not the type of alpha to ask Steve what he wants with his body. At least there’s short, groomed hair around his dick, thank Christ. Fucking smooth omegas has always rubbed him the wrong way. He’s not a good person, not above forcing himself on an omega, but again he fucking hates kids. And smooth omegas remind him of kids.

“Mmm, can’t wait to get you nice and ready for my knot,” Billy sighs above Steve’s straining erection. He pauses long enough to press a few kisses to the underside of the head, maybe swipes his tongue a few times to get Steve arching and cooing again. He tastes clean. “You know that’s what you’re here for, right? I heard somewhere you want a pup real bad, having troubles getting one.”

Steve’s next sound is almost a sob. He finds enough strength to lift his head and shoot huge, watery eyes down at Billy. Still paused above Steve’s pretty dick, Billy stares that surprise down while mouthing a few more kisses over the velvety length. Steve pants hard enough to wind himself, lips flapping like he can speak, and then tears break over his lashes. They race for his jaw as the first sob shakes him, knocks him right back to the bed where he belongs. Billy pays them no mind, just smears his mouth up and down the omega’s hard prick while watching him tremble. Steve doesn’t even move his hands to wipe at his face or muffle his whimpers, and Billy swells with pride.

“Shhh, shhh, hey,” Billy coos with a soft grin as he sits back up.

He almost wobbles while climbing to his knees, but he saves it to reach for Steve’s teary face. Fucking a crying omega is only fun if they’re blissed out. These are overwhelmed tears, not something Billy is into. He shushes Steve more, even ducks down to nuzzle him all over again. It’s encouraging when Steve sniffles and hides his face in Billy’s shoulder, almost his neck. Somehow, Steve remembers his place.

Sucking his teeth, Billy purrs for Steve and then says, “You still want that, right?” He balances himself with his right hand in the bed while the left pets Steve’s hair out of his face. “You just want a little pup to dote on and love, don’t you?” 

Steve presses his face harder to Billy’s shoulder with a whine. The syrup in Billy’s voice must do it for Steve, because he presses shy kisses over honey skin. His scent is all the riper, desperate for what Billy teases him with. His wiggling is back just as Billy’s amusement returns. He could just shake the walls of the hotel room laughing. Nancy would absolutely lose it if she hadn’t done this. Billy gives that plot another month or so before she would have done something regrettable. Oh, but she’ll live to regret this. Once Billy has claimed Steve inside and out, she won’t be able to claw him back to her. Steve will be his. 

Voice still deep and sweet, Billy coos in Steve’s ear, “Hush now, I know, I know. You’re excited to have one, all you omegas are.”

His left hand glides down the trembling plane of Steve’s body, warm palm settling heavy under Steve’s navel. Steve jumps when Billy has to slip his hand under that pretty cock of his to do it. Fingers digging into his belly, above where he’d start to show, guides Steve right back to their talking point. He sinks his teeth into Billy next to muffle another sob. And then arches his body into Billy’s hand. 

From the bottom of his throat, so Nancy doesn’t hear him, Billy promises, “You’re gonna look so pretty on my knot, darlin’. I’ll make sure to give you every drop until you’re glowing and heavy with my pup.”

The salt of Steve’s arousal gushes that much brighter in their noses. Billy throws a wide-eyed look down and between them, heart jumping to think he’s made Steve come just by talking to him. Close, but no cigar. Steve’s cock drools pathetic and wet onto his belly, straining for touch. For anything. Chuckled hum so deeply satisfied, Billy returns his attention to Steve and nuzzles his hair one more time. He peels his hand away, too, despite Steve’s mournful groan. Billy pets up and down his chest a few times to wash that sadness away. He’s not going anywhere. 

“Not much longer,” he says over the background drone of the TV playing, their breathing more prominent in the foreground. “Gonna work some of this heat out of you first.”

It’s a devilish promise. Because he’s had ideas. Fantasies and promises to himself of what he would do to Steve. When Steve would eventually be his. That’s not yet come to pass, but he can get started on those plans. Billy’s hands begin behind Steve’s knees, hiking the omega’s long legs up and out. Not quite bent to his chest, that’s not necessary for Billy to hunker down between his trembling thighs and take his fill of the sight before him. With his wrists still crossed exactly where Billy had left them, Steve can’t reach down and cover himself. Can’t hide how he twitches and wiggles, how more slick pours out of him the longer Billy stares. Pert cheeks are slick stained and sticky. Steve had given a startled, pretty noise when Billy first hoisted his legs high. Billy waits to make his next move until Steve is quiet again. After Steve’s display and needy whines, Billy is plenty hungry, wants to dig in.

First, Billy blows a cool stream of air over Steve’s messy hole and the space behind his dick. He savors Steve’s wild buck and the choked moan that pops out of him. Billy almost wants to drop one of Steve’s legs to pet his fingers across the omega’s fine scar behind the base of his cock. Where his balls would be, if they’d dropped if he weren’t an omega. Steve definitely comes from a wealthier family, one concerned about their breeding stock. Only wealthy families shell out the money to alter their baby boy omegas, removing things that are perfectly natural. Snorting, Billy shuffles on his ass to get comfortable. None of that matters in the grand scheme of things. Not to Billy. 

The only thing that matters is what he wants, truthfully. What he wants is to hear Steve fall apart and squeal when Billy shoves his tongue past that wet rim. Steve is probably gagging enough for it that he’s loose. There’s no way the Ice Queen has ever done this. It’s beneath her, surely. Billy rolls his eyes to no one and finally bows his head and shoulders to lap Steve’s slick from the source. He expects Steve’s voice breaking into sharp pieces, expects the buck of that lithe body he catches with his hands. Seen and done and felt a hundred times before Steve was ever laid out like a feast before him on this fine day. So Billy isn’t shy at all about pressing his face full and flush between Steve’s cheeks. He’ll get his eyelids wet, he doesn’t give a fuck.

Steve is cute when he whines and wiggles. Like there’s any hope of Billy relaxing his bruising grip on Steve’s thighs. Billy shuffles closer to make absolutely sure of that, leveraging some of his weight down on Steve. The omega isn’t quite bent in half yet, and if Billy is going to flip the little darling on his belly to knot him, then it probably won’t happen. Billy is plenty content where he is now: lapping the flat of his tongue to make Steve shiver only to press heavy kitten licks right to his rim to hear his voice break. Steve’s tenor cracking with passion is fingers in Billy’s hair that skate down his neck and pet the dip in his spine. He presses his tongue that much harder to hear it again. Again. Again!

Too focused on watching Steve up the pale expanse of him, the eager twitches of his cock go unnoticed. Steve’s mouth dropping open and brows coming together doesn’t. Billy must scramble to bottle his moan when Steve comes on his tongue. The first wave of Steve’s body snapping to his orgasm briskly shows Billy’s tongue right out. No matter, there will be more. It won’t be as intense as the orgasm or two Billy will bully from Steve, knot sealed tight inside him. Billy would be lying if he claimed to not be excited about coming in Steve and filling him up. Even if it is a ruse, he likes the fantasy of it. Just not the product. Making a mess of them and holding them down, making them take it. Billy shivers through the last waves of Steve’s orgasm and gives him one last lick, flicking at the end just to tease him.

Billy leaves Steve on his back long enough to swipe his right hand through thin ejaculate and rub it all over Steve’s chest and thighs. Leave him good and sticky when Billy is done with him. So later, even while he’s bathing, he’ll remember how the scent of himself ended up all over porcelain and ink spatter. Steve’s eyes blink up soft and heavy at him, too dazed to know what Billy has done. Maybe Billy should have saved some for that pretty blush of his. Maybe dip his fingers past those cherry lips while he’s at it. The opportunity passes, and Billy would rather take his pleasure from Steve. He’s waited long enough.

“Red rover, red rover,” Billy says with a grin, big hands like paws already scooping under Steve, “flip the omega right over.”

And Steve goes face-first into a pillow with a cut-off whine. Sure enough, there is a damp spot where his ass had been. Not big, not like the one they’re about to make in the sheets. Enough for Billy to see it and use it to hone the edge of his amusement.

“Oh darlin’, we coulda skipped right to this part if I knew you needed a knot that bad.”

Steve picks his head up from the circle of his arms. Comfortable. Billy’s shadow falls over him when he sweeps low to reach a pink ear.

Against that warm shell he purrs, “You left a slick stain on the sheets, naughty boy.”

Instead of curling up shy or trying to hide his ear from Billy’s filthy voice, Steve bites himself through a moan. His hands are still off limits, and he can’t quite figure out how to get his knees under him to cuddle his body back into Billy’s above him. So he tosses a watery, desperate glance over his shoulder. Steve’s ‘fuck me’ eyes couldn’t be louder, more honest in what they want. It would tickle Billy to watch Steve struggle to his knees to present himself, but he won’t get hung up about it. He’s got plenty of strength to spare to help Steve into the proper position. 

Billy slips a hand up to pet Steve’s warm hair before they get started. Steve coos under the gentle caress, tries to lift his head to follow Billy when it ends. Seeking softness and comfort despite what Billy is about to do to him. Surprise cuts off Steve’s confusion when Billy scoops his hands under Steve’s hips again, both this time, and pops him up onto his knees. He wobbles until one hand slides from hip to back to pet him up and down the dip of his spine. Comforting him like he’d wanted. Telling him this behavior is good; that Steve should continue it.

Steve’s wiggles return like this, so Billy pinches a pert cheek for his troubles. He relishes Steve’s flinch and grunt of pain while widening his stance on his knees. That pinching hand remains there to steady Steve while Billy positions himself behind the omega. Steve is ready for him, or had better be. Billy is ready with amusement on his face, hunger heavy just below that, and a lazy hand stroking himself. If only Steve could see what he’s about to take. He’d probably blush all pretty like a virgin.

The hand not stroking his dick has to stop Steve from swaying on his knees. Back bowed perfectly, Steve’s head turns to the left to let him pant. He’s quiet, now. Maybe sensing what’s about to happen. Feeling along the tense thread stretched between them, reading the atmosphere. He doesn’t see it coming, mostly because his eyes are pinched shut. And most of his movements have dulled to just his shaking. Humming at that, not sure why Steve’s sweetness dips a little, Billy shrugs and leans his weight forward on his knees. The first brush of blood-hot skin, just rutting his cock between those cheeks to get it wet, Steve jumps harder than before and finally tries to squirm away. To escape. 

“Uh uhhh,” Billy sing-songs, dropping the hand on his cock to snatch Steve by his thighs and haul him back up and higher. Steve shivers as Billy presses them flush together but just as quickly goes back to dragging himself away. “Nowhere to run, darlin’, be good now.”

He needs to do this fast or Steve will just wiggle flat to the bed. The omega being uncooperative right now of all times sparks Billy’s annoyance. It’s never far from his surface anyway. As his grip on Steve’s thighs slips and he wrestles with him, squirming all the more now and whining desperately, pleading for something, Billy tunes into Nancy huffing a laugh under her breath. When he flicks a glare over his shoulder at her, he finds her with pink dusting her cheeks and her legs crossed. She is not unaffected despite Billy’s presence, although he reads her disgust for what it is. Disgust at this display—to be expected, he’s fucking ‘her’ omega, after all—and a little disgust at herself for not controlling that reaction. Everything is about control with them. And Nancy must find Billy’s slipping amusing.

“Do you have something to share with the class or…?”

Nancy adjusts herself in the chair, changing the lay of her weight where she sits, and says, “It’s nothing. Don’t let me interrupt.”

If only Nancy were his biggest problem. Steve has forgotten about keeping his hands down and now tries to claw himself away. The headboard is before him, though, so he doesn’t have anywhere to go. Growling, Billy firms the grip of his hands around Steve’s thighs and yanks him that much harder back. He’ll leave bruises at the most, tenderness at the least, but Steve disobeying him and disrupting them is poor behavior on the omega’s part. 

“Stop squirming,” he snaps. He doesn’t need to edge his voice into a command, because Steve cowers immediately, even curls up as best he can with his weight on his knees and chest. Like this, he can’t protect himself, but he can make himself smaller. Appeasement.

Behind him, Nancy huffs a laugh again.

“What?” Billy barely glances over his shoulder this time, needing all his focus on Steve. He hisses to Steve’s trembling back, “Decided you wanna do this the hard way, huh?”

Taking himself in hand, he nudges his cock against that sloppy entrance, is about to just take Steve despite his whining turning higher and scared, when Nancy finally speaks up.

“He doesn’t like that position.”

She says it casually and bored, like they’re talking about what sort of food Steve likes as opposed to this. Billy stops smearing his head through clear slick but doesn’t take it away. He glares down at Steve’s hunched shoulders, at the way watery eyes peek up at him through locks of tousled hair. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He asks, barely moving his lips and not breaking his eye contact with Steve. His spare hand tightens around a squishy thigh. Irritated at Steve now, and he takes pleasure in the trill Steve tries to appease him with. “Speak up or you can listen to him scream and cry while I do this.”

“He doesn’t like the stereotypical ‘presenting’ position, the exact one you have him in now. He likes face-to-face.”

“Of course,” Billy grunts to himself.

He already knows he’ll flip Steve back over. He’s just annoyed with it all. That he can’t quite convince himself to just pop his knot in Steve like this, the omega enjoying it or not. A willing omega is better than a resistant one. That’s what he tells himself as he scoots back and bats at Steve’s hips again, shoving him into the damp spot, flat on his back once more.

Watery eyes blink up at him and Steve’s hands come down to curl up on his chest as he shies away from Billy’s glare and snapped, “Happy now?”

A thick whine slips out of Steve, still upset but better, and he throws his hands up at Billy. Come here, come down, please let me touch you. Billy sees Steve’s desire for reassurance for what it is, withholds himself from Steve for a few breaths. Until Steve’s hands start to shake and he looks like he’ll drop it and just cry and sniffle through this. Billy rolls his eyes so hard it threatens a headache. He’d rather go back to the ease between them while he was eating Steve’s ass, but whatever, it’s a bump in the road. He’s waited this long, he can bow down and nuzzle and purr for Steve until the omega warms back up to him.

“Fucking spoiled,” he grumbles in Steve’s ear just as the omega coos and slips his arms tightly around Billy’s neck. “Don’t say I never did anything for you, brat.”

Lips brush over the shell of his ear, mindful of the diamond stud just below, and then Steve pulls back gradually as he plants kisses down Billy’s jaw. Billy sighs as his ardour flags a bit. At least now Steve is spread out below him. Pliant once more. Sweetness returning, squirming returning as Steve gets into it again. There must be some history behind why Steve doesn’t like being fucked face down. Billy has yet to meet an omega with that particular twist until now. He recalls at the first brush of Steve’s lips at the corner of his mouth that occasionally omegas will ask he not kiss them on the lips. Of the infrequent limitations, that is the most common one. It won’t be a problem right now as Steve squeals when Billy shoves his tongue past cherry lips yet to part for him. They do now with firm pressure behind Billy’s lips sliding them harder together, letting him lick deeper. And Steve encourages him with needy whines and eager licks back. Not as passive as Billy had thought. So very interesting, this one.

They break apart with a gasp from Steve that’s more like a growl. A tiny one, perhaps what Steve had sounded like when he was a pup, playing around. Billy snorts in the face of that wild desire beneath him and fakes Steve out for another kiss. Steve’s arms tense around him, as if Steve could ever hope to rebel against Billy’s strength. Billy wills him to relax with a pointed look. Steve is smart, though, knows his place despite his cheekiness. He huffs and tips his head back into the pillow. Looking down his nose at Billy yes but the motion also offers his throat. They’re in the thick of it again, Steve piping hot like earlier. 

Below and between them, Billy scoops Steve’s legs up behind his knees again. He surges forward with Steve clinging to him in surprise so he can rock the omega’s weight towards the headboard. That shifts Steve’s balance, too, and it only takes firm hands gripping his hips to curl them up, opening and offering himself to Billy. The long arms around Billy’s neck relax only to slip away like someone has cut Steve’s strings. He may not enjoy the position they’d been in, but he assumes much the same looseness and lack of lucidity. Just while on his back, legs bent lovely in the air. Billy holds him still like that, hovering above him while slotted deep between those thighs. Not lined up yet, but soon.

“Yea, you’re good and ready now.” He fakes Steve out of another kiss with a grin tacked on to finish. “I can smell how bad you need this knot.” Billy pops his hips against Steve’s ass just to rub on him. He’ll have to slide a hand free to bury himself where he belongs. Back bowing, Billy blankets Steve in warmth when he dips lower to murmur just for them, “Gonna fill you up, pretty darlin’, be good for me now.”

Hands twisted in the sheet under them, Steve throws his head hard and away. A cord stretches in the crook of his neck, begging for teeth. Billy’s jaw aches from how badly he wants that right now. But he can’t, not yet. He forces that frustration into the pit of his stomach, down and deeper still to the desire sitting heavy in his gut. It’s the perfect time to balance Steve’s weight with one hand while the other grabs for his dick. It only takes a sweet whine from Steve, lips pressing wet, loud kisses to his throat and some tight strokes to get him hard. His head already swims with Steve’s desire pouring thick and so sweet off him. Steve’s next whine is all broken and fluttering when Billy jostles their bodies together, guiding the blushing head of his prick back to that wet hole.

Billy lets his shoulder drop onto Steve to pin him down while sinking inside for the first time. He expects the tightness sure, he barely slipped a tongue in this little clutch, let alone something to loosen him. Steve flinches and cries out as Billy knew he would. Too much, too fast. For Steve anyway, because the vice around Billy is heavenly. Enough to send his eyes heavy and about to roll back. But he wants more, knows there’s more, and so shifts his weight on his knees. They slide farther apart, allowing Billy to just roll his hips up and glide the rest of him into Steve, pelvis to ass. That tightness around the base of his cock makes him see stars this time, and his deep groan is all for Steve.

“Fuck darlin’,” he hisses into brown locks. Steve is quiet and trembles under him, twitches on his cock. “Been a long time since I bred someone as tight as you, god damn…”

He knows he’s hurting Steve. The desire is as thick as ever, overriding all other emotions Steve may have. Purely because his body is finally getting what it needs, and it betrays his pain with silence. Because all of his pretty gasps and whines have snuffed out. And he wiggles to try and force Billy out. Not grind him deeper. Billy stifles another deep groan in Steve’s hair as he reclaims both hips, now, and shifts Steve a few inches back and forth. Steve startles in his grasp, the discomfort of pressure moving inside him, and lets loose a pained squeak.

“Hush,” Billy purrs to him, keeping a gentle speed for now, not even popping his hips into Steve’s ass. “It won’t hurt for long, just relax, you know I’m gonna make you feel good.”

It burns terribly, Billy knows, to have such thickness spear him open. And then to move, even as wet as Steve is, back and forth through that ache. It gets Billy’s stomach flopping thinking about it, adds to the drum of blood headed south. Steve’s pain must sizzle like caramel hot in a pan, burning when Billy picks up the pace. When Steve relaxes some around him, glides back and forth on Billy all the smoother, Billy knows the heat has turned down on that pain. It’s syrup now, and it thickens with Steve’s pleasure as it cools. Billy wants to taste the sweet whimpers humming out of Steve’s mouth. So Billy cranes his head up to slide his lips over Steve’s. The omega opens beautifully for him here as he had below.

Jaw unlocked with teasing swipes at the seam of him, Steve’s noises pour out of him once more. They have nowhere to go but directly onto Billy’s tongue and down his throat. He pistons his hips faster, pins Steve’s to the bed harder just to have more. Billy barely growls into their messy kisses when Steve throws his arms around him. Blunt nails scramble just below his longest curls for bare skin, freckles. Letting it go is the easier option, is the option that will allow Billy to keep fucking Steve’s slick hole, so he lets it go. Let the spoiled brat carve him up, who cares? Billy will leave his marks, too. Bruises and sore spots and the indents of his teeth as he finally seeks out the crook of Steve’s neck and bites.

Finally that sort of pleasure that has his skin singing and desire throbbing. Steve rocks his body against Billy’s rhythm, sort of helping to fuck himself. Steve continues mindlessly like that as Billy grins around his neck and stops. He waits to count off the bobs of Steve’s hips and then matches him—thundering forward when Steve shifts himself down. The next cry in Billy’s blushing ear is more shrill than all the others before. Billy’s jaw aches less when he unlocks his teeth and huffs a few laughs into Steve’s neck. All the pain from Billy shoving into him is gone, a distant memory. Steve even likes it when they slam together, if the louder moans Billy pops out of him mean anything. And the nails hooked into his back, clinging for dear life. 

It won’t be long, now. Not with Steve’s legs helping themselves to hook around his hips. Billy bellows a groan in the crook of Steve’s neck when Steve draws himself towards Billy with each thrust. It’s slick and loud and filthy, but Steve is oblivious to it all. His long moan stretches on and goes higher when Billy hits him just right. It breaks only for Steve to suck in a frantic breath so he doesn’t pass out. He’s completely gone, now, body loose on Billy’s cock and ready for the gradual swell of his knot. Steve doesn’t catch on it yet, not quite thick enough or maybe the glide inside him too smooth. Billy pants and groans as much as Steve whimpers for him, focused on the tightness growing behind his navel.

The desire strikes him, then, to knot Steve as the omega comes on his cock. He wants that tightness snapping and curling up around him. So the knot will be that much bigger for Steve. A larger stretch. It’ll hurt more. Billy wants that more than air, and so shoves a hand between them to fist Steve’s hardness fast, mean, until his cries are pained all over again. One orgasm would leave him tingling already, so Billy’s palm is probably too rough on the poor omega. Billy doesn’t care, fucks into Steve and squeezes the base of his cock at the same time. The only time fist and hips fall out of rhythm is for Billy to squeeze and thumb at Steve’s sensitive head, pressing the side of his thumbnail into the delicate slit.

Steve’s scream is a garbled mess when he spurts in Billy’s hand. Billy thinks he catches his name, the Lord’s, and the Almighty’s immediately on top of that. But Billy keeps his head out of those clouds, only lets Steve’s broken moan stroke his ego. Strength gathered under him, Billy thunders forward one last time and has to swirl his hips to push the beginnings of his knot into Steve. The moment Steve tunes into it, how it spreads him wider and wider, beyond comfort and into pain and no one can stop it, Billy’s breath leaves him as he comes.

His hips surge forward with the muscles below his navel seizing in waves. Steve tucks his tearful, blushing face into Billy’s neck during that moment of vulnerability. Billy gnashes his teeth over his next groan so he doesn’t snap them. He’s a humming, tingling mess from his scalp all the way to his toes. Which he can’t feel anymore because they curl to the point of numbness. Whole body strung taut like a bow, the only parts of him that move are his hips. They rock his knot into that ruined clutch with every blurt of thick come that shoots out of him. He is aware of Steve shaking under him and breathing hard. Or maybe Billy’s breathing hard. Who knows. His entire focus hones in on Steve tight around him. So Steve ends up taking most of Billy’s weight when his knees give out.

A bratty trill tickles his ear. Annoyed at Billy for falling on top of him like some ape. Billy chuckles in his hair, blissed out himself and so easily amused. Steve huffs as best he can under Billy’s bulk and makes garbled noises that are just as annoyed as his trill.

“Hey now,” Billy purrs with a grin, his voice rough from his groan when he’d come. “You’re the one who wanted to face me while we fucked. This is your fault, darlin’, so deal with it.”

Steve shifting on his knot cuts Billy’s amusement right off, melts the sharp edges into pleasure again. He’s not the one on his cycle, so his knot won’t last too long. They’d be here for two days if Billy were the one feeling the need between his knees. Billy won’t fool his wild, possessive streak into thinking Nancy will leave Steve here. She’s a sit-in-the-room-and-watch alpha. If she won’t leave Steve alone for one fuck, she certainly won’t be letting Billy have more than the one. He should make it count for Steve. Because he suspects that even if Steve’s heat lasts longer than today that Nancy won’t have anything to do with him. The poor little fuck. Hopefully he’s got some toys to play with.

On the heels of that thought, a nicer one follows. He can at least give Steve one more for the road. It may hurt his cute dick to do it, but Billy doesn’t mind. It’ll be amazing to feel that tightness around him again. It will have to last until the rest of the domino blocks in this scheme of his tumble. They’ve already flicked the first block, set it into motion. Billy hums with his teeth in the corner of his mouth while squeezing a hand between them one again. He wonders how long she’ll let Steve suffer unawares before ripping the rug out from under him. 

“Gimme one more, darlin’, wanna feel you tight around me one more time.”

Milky flesh charged with hormones and his heat screaming down on him, all Steve manages is a high-pitched sigh when Billy strokes him. And then a wince and a squirm, and then his mouth hanging open in another long moan. In his haste to squirm away from Billy’s hand, he’s gone and ground Billy’s knot right into him. Like a burr. Billy recalls well the angle his hips rolled while fucking into Steve to make him cry louder. His free hand digs into the softness of Steve’s belly while the other plays cruel, tight games with the head of his dick. Steve isn’t yet fully numb under Billy’s thumb petting dark flesh. Billy digs a nail into the underside of him this time just to make sure, and Steve bucks and mewls just like Billy hoped. 

“Just like that, come on.” Billy snaps his hips hard twice and enjoys the smack of sweat and slick between them. He makes sure to let his nails bite into Steve’s belly. “I know you can come for me one more time, Steve.”

His lips tickle against the shell of Steve’s ear when he purrs the omega’s name. Fingers rolling and kneading Steve in his hand, they catch the single blurt of come Billy manages to squeeze out of him. Sweaty face tucked to Steve’s hair, there’s no one to see Billy’s eyes flutter and roll back with his groan as Steve comes on his knot one more time. Such tight snaps of that clutch around him, pressure around his knot that feels like he’ll come again, too. Just as that rising wave is about to crest and crash into him, Steve shifts on him. And he goes slipping right out of the omega with a filthy gush following. It punches the breath right out of Billy, strangling an orgasm just at the precipice. He groans and almost cradles a hand between his legs, physically aching from being denied. Steve’s distressed whine coaxes his head up. 

Steve squirms under him with both hands threaded down his body. Billy smells it, then, salt and bitter of them spilling out of Steve. It riles Billy right back up, and he throws himself off Steve in a breath, snatches Steve’s hands that have fingers scooping up come to stuff it back inside him. Steve doesn’t even look at Billy grinning like the devil in his face, too genuinely frantic to not let a single drop of Billy go to waste. It takes the edge off the pain in his balls from not coming, at least.

Steve’s wrists would probably benefit from an ice pack when Nancy takes him home. Because once again Billy tests the strength of those joints. All the little bones grind together locked under his fist. Naughty for touching what isn’t his to touch.

“Get your fingers out of there,” he growls, although no anger laces in the words. He’s rather pleased with Steve’s desperate plot, will remember it in the future when he’s alone and feeling the need. “That’s mine.”

Steve’s wrists in one of Billy’s hands, he stretches to pin them above Steve’s head. That leaves Billy’s left hand down to slip down and take over. Steve is a tall guy with a long torso. Billy wants it like this though, shivers when Steve’s fingers curl up and brush his skin. Yes, like this, it has to be like this. Billy bears his weight down on Steve’s wrists as he watches Steve’s face. Below, he wedges his fingers into the mess leaking out of Steve and draws it back inside. More gushes out every time Billy glides into that used hole, but again and again he feeds the sticky mess back into Steve. Because they have to make sure he catches, right? Billy is fulfilling a service here, even if Steve isn’t fully aware. So Billy has a stake in making sure it takes and Steve can live the fantasy of carrying his pup. Billy snorts as Steve’s face relaxes the longer fingers play inside him, until the omega is almost asleep.

A humming sigh and then a secret murmured to him under the babbling drone of the TV, “Pleasant dreams, darlin’. I’ll be seeing you again real soon.”

Fingers pulling out of Steve and blinking down at him, Billy doesn’t get much more in than his clean hand petting bangs off Steve’s forehead and stealing a kiss from cherry lips. Nancy is up and marching about. Gathering a washcloth for Steve to clean him up as best she can. Billy leaves her to that task—hadn’t been in his mind to do so anyway—and goes searching for his clothes. He needs the hottest shower the hotel can provide to wash the ache out of his thighs and lower back. Jesus, he hates knotting face to face like that, just a pain when there are so many better ways…

Nancy tries to dive into the bathroom before Billy takes over it, but he denies her. Shuts the door right in her face and locks it.

“Pleasure doing business with you, Miss Wheeler. Make sure to shoot me an email when the pregnancy test comes back positive!”

His cackle fills the room warm and hearty like baking bread. It calms down while he goes about flicking the shower on high and then glancing at himself in the mirror. It’s also worth it to stand here and listen to Nancy scramble around like a raccoon trying to escape. How she’ll handle Steve’s dead weight as she redresses him and then shuffles them to the street below, he’s not sure. Doesn’t care, wouldn’t offer her help even if he thought for a second she would accept. Because fuck her. He leans forward towards the mirror with his hands braced into the vanity sink before him and looks this way and that. There are a few red marks on his neck. The interesting bit is when he rolls his shoulders. The top of his back comes alight in tingling pain. Contorting in front of the mirror, he spies the pink welts of Steve’s kitten claws crisscrossing all over. And three deep gouges over a shoulder blade, Steve holding on.

Huffing through his nose, Billy grumbles, “The mark of a sexless omega: long nails.”

Oh to be a fly on the bathroom wall of that apartment. For Steve’s sake, hopefully Nancy draws him a bath and lets him relax. What she’ll probably do is dump him in a spare bedroom and leave him alone. Nancy and Steve are long gone when Billy shoves soaked hair out of his face and gives his back to the stream. Some part of him snarls at that, but not for the right reasons. She’s mistreating something of Billy’s, and he doesn’t appreciate it. Does the thought of Steve alone during his heat upset him on a moral level? No. It should, he knows it should. But Steve’s misery doesn’t matter to him if someone else is causing it. And Billy would never leave Steve alone during a heat anyway.

Just as Billy had thought, it’s the social club and the sneak peeks of Steve that get him through these next months. It takes Billy showing up at the hall three times for the first reveal. Truth be told, Billy isn’t sure how this part will play out. Either Nancy will have somehow convinced an excited Steve to keep quiet about this, to not tell everyone. Or she’ll announce it with Steve hanging all over her. She can’t avoid it, now. Billy knows the moment they show up that she’s managed to continue the lie somehow. When Billy’s eyes catch on Steve so pink in his cheeks and smiling so wide, he knows instantly Steve thinks he’s done it. He finally got the pup he begged Nancy for. It doesn’t escape Billy’s notice that when Steve’s doe eyes find him in the crowd that day he spares the distant alpha a long look. Thank you.

How soon before Nancy turns the whole charade around on Steve, though? If only there were some impossible way for Billy to know. Of course he’ll never ask, and Nancy will never tell him. Maybe Steve will tell him one day, since Steve will relate closely to Billy when this is all over and Steve is where he belongs. Because they’d almost shared something, and Nancy was the one to take it from them. Steve will always wonder what could have been as he falls deeper into the bottomless well of Billy’s hunger for him. He’s been freefalling through the opening of the well for some time, now. When will he tune into the shadows reaching up for him to take him in their phantom grasp and never let him see the light of day again?

What he hungers for as the months go on is a moment alone with Steve. A brush near the restrooms, the pair separated and Steve searching. Something. If only to be near enough to Steve to taste him on the air and sample what he’s truly feeling. Because of course that first day when Steve ‘knew,’ he’d glowed. But Nancy won’t leave the downfall of this to chance, leave it up to Steve’s brain psyching him out. So the next time after that when Billy sees Steve, he’s ready for anything. Ready to find Steve even more beautiful than last time, flush with happiness. Or a little grey around the edges and looking ready to run for a bathroom any second. So Billy is prepared when that exact thing happens about an hour after Nancy and Steve’s arrival. No one spares the fleeing omega a second thought. Except Billy, on the prowl and slipping out of the room when someone else enters.

He loiters outside the bathroom marked for omegas and just leans against the wall. Listening. It’s quiet enough to make his ears ring a bit, so he picks up plain as day Steve retching. Then moaning, crying following quickly, and then softer crying until nothing. Thumbs in his belt loops, Billy relaxes his weight into the wall behind him and soaks up that thick misery like smoke. Nancy must be desperate to make this work, must have gotten off her high horse about spiking Steve’s food to make him ill. Unless Steve has wound himself up so much that he’s making himself vomit on nerves and placebo effect alone. The mind is a powerful thing, after all. On the other side of the wall, Steve must make up his mind to pick himself back up and get out there. Billy can’t help himself, can’t stay away, and so waits for Steve to emerge with bags under his eyes and some of his color still missing.

“Evening, darlin’.” Steve jumps clear out of skin as Billy expects, so he waits for Steve to spin around on a heel and sputter his surprise before adding, “You’re not looking so good. You okay?”

“Fine,” Steve wheezes, voice rough from acid. Hopefully he’d rinsed a few times in the sink. The little cup of water he was nursing before will be of no use to him now. So Steve has to wince through a swallow and try again with, “I-I’m fine, um, Billy. Thanks.”

“Mhmm.” Billy looks him up and down. “And how is…” He glances deliberately down. It would be far too early for Steve to show even if he were pregnant. Which he’s not, and it takes everything in Billy to keep his face straight. Because he wants to laugh himself silly, but he won’t fuck up everything when he’s so close!

Steve feigns casually, rubbing the back of his neck and shooting Billy a sheepish smile. Not meeting his eyes again, but that’s okay. Billy can do without Steve walking three steps behind him and remaining silent during group conversations. Those sort of social rules aren’t useful to him. Steve’s instincts refusing to let him look an alpha in the eye, though? Billy can’t get enough of that. Because he’s the one to lean in, cock his head just so, and force it. He gets what he’s wanted for weeks now: Steve thick in his nose despite the distance between them. The sourness of sickness. Fatigue sticks to Steve right at the surface. Recent, of course. Below that is a general sort of giddiness, but it’s buried so deeply Steve probably isn’t aware of it anymore. No, he’s fully focused on the alpha in his personal space and how obvious Billy is about scenting him. Thin arms slip around and hold Steve low on his belly.

Straightening to his full height, Billy backs up at that moment, recognizing the defensiveness for what it is. He just won’t be the one to back down, Steve’s body language not even offending him. Steve isn’t his yet, so it’s to be expected he’s a little uneasy alone with Billy. Yes, Steve is comfortable with him despite him being a stranger. Mostly a stranger. At least Steve doesn’t hiss at him and go running back to Nancy. Billy has watched Steve dismiss the curious prodding of other alphas. Dismissed them with the highbrow he was born into, the motion as easy as flicking crumbs away. Haughty. Steve doesn’t do that to him even now. A shiver runs through the poor omega, and then he shuffles back a few steps. If only the wall of the hallway were behind Steve and Billy could just back him into it. All in due time. Steve isn’t ready yet. But with this sadness and misery hanging over him, it won’t be long now.

“Well,” Billy drawls, aiming a little grin at Steve’s eyes turned down, “take care of yourself. Get Miss Wheeler to look up home remedies for morning sickness.”

He knows she won’t. She’ll want as little to do with Steve’s ‘pregnancy’ as possible right until she reveals the charade. Oh, Steve is probably more alone now than ever before. Billy may dislike Nancy down to her very essence, but game recognizes game. They unfortunately share some similarities, loath as Billy is to admit it even privately. The thought of having to comfort and cuddle and take care of a pregnant omega makes his skin crawl. Babies and kids are the worst, and pregnant omegas rank right up there with their neediness turned to 11. Not in his wildest dreams can Billy imagine Nancy wanting any part of this. She’s too frigid, too selfish, clearly uncomfortable with Steve’s emotions. No, she’s probably begging for time to tick by faster so she can snuff out this desire in Steve and just continue on her merry way. Little does she know.

Nancy gives out before Billy’s patience. Billy wouldn’t consider himself a patient person to begin with. He’s just good at playing the long game to get what he wants if he can’t brute force it. Most things can be solved with intimidation and his fists, he’s found. Not this. Not if he wants Steve complicit at his side. A willing omega is better than a resistant one. If he wanted Steve to resist him, he could have forced himself on Steve forever ago. Thought about it, made casual plans that never went anywhere. Because rather than just take Steve for himself, he wants to soil Steve for anyone else. Especially Nancy. If only Billy could have been there, wherever the conversation fell, to hear Nancy explain her deception. To see Steve’s face crumble with realization that it was all a lie to manipulate him.

He’ll only get to witness the aftermath, though. The last time he’d loitered around the social club, Nancy made an appearance. Without Steve. Billy’s gut told him something was up, something changed. Either Nancy was overdoing it with drugging Steve or Steve was just worse off. So he makes doubly sure to skulk about the place the following weekend when Nancy is supposed to be there. This time, she shows up with Steve who would relate more to a corpse than any person attending the club tonight. Eyes down, so pale despite the milkiness of him, and completely unresponsive to anyone or anything. When Nancy tries to reach behind her to put a hand on him, he carefully slips out from under her attention and wanders away. She spares him a frown, probably more upset with his poor manners than actually concerned, and then turns back to the conversation. Billy waits for Steve to slip to the gardens outside, the night so mild in this late spring, and then pursues.

So handsome in his suit, Steve’s blatant melancholy clashes with his attire and the prim attitude of the social club. He plays the part well enough, because truly what does he have to do but stand around his alpha like arm candy and just be pretty. Pretty and silent. But he peels himself off the smooth backing of the fake, shallow sheet of higher society and is more content to stick himself to the garden. To peace where his shoulders sink as low as they want and he hangs his head. Ice cubes in his drink twinkle against the glass. Perhaps Steve’s first taste of alcohol in a month or two. He is alone, so he thinks, and drops the brave face he’d put on inside, knocking a large mouthful of amber liquor back. Alone except for Billy, slinking from one puddle of light to the next. Downwind. Steve leans his elbows on a decorative half-wall and dumps the rest of his drink into the bushes.

“Must have been shit if you just did that,” Billy drawls as he materializes out of dusky shadows and into the light near Steve. The omega barely flinches, but he does turn his head towards the alpha. Billy keep his amusement in line when he adds, “It’s a sin to waste good alcohol.”

Steve’s lips purse together like he’ll give Billy the silent treatment. A challenge for a songbird like Steve, quiet only in sleep and sadness. Billy doesn’t make it easy for him while joining Steve to lean on the half-wall. He says nothing while flipping open a cigarette case from his breast pocket to wedge a Marlboro between his lips. Case switched for lighter, an inhale, and then Billy’s hands are free but for the cigarette pinched between his pointer and thumb. The curl of grey-blue smoke off the cherry dissipates into the night when the wind takes it.

Exhaling around them rather than away, Billy tests his luck. In spite of that gentle breeze, he’s too close for comfort while smoking. Steve wouldn’t be standing out here, moping with two fingers of whiskey and ice if he didn’t know the truth. Certainly wouldn’t entertain Billy smoking around him. So it doesn’t surprise him at all when Steve just stands there and passes through the cloud of Billy’s exhale. He doesn’t even cough.

Mirroring Steve’s posture against the wall, Billy sniffs and asks lowly, “So why are you out here all alone with a whisky and about two seconds away from asking me for a cigarette when, last I knew, you were p—”

“I’m not.”

Ah, like sweet wine, the dejected croak in that voice.

Billy hums, “I gathered that,” around the filter between his lips, exhales, and then goes on, “So what happened?” He glances sideways to find Steve staring straight ahead. “Did she make you… ?”

“I was never pregnant.” Steve pauses after that, lips sort of twitching like he’ll break into laughter, and then it all washes over him. The shadow that cuts across his face is sharper than a knife. “Pretty stupid hearing it out loud. Of course I wasn’t.”

Oh but the bitter bite! The aftertaste of hopelessness! Billy cups his elation against his thumb while pinching the cigarette away again.

“But I heard something about a test, that you knew for sure.”

“She lied,” Steve says with his voice thickening up. He swallows a few times to try and get it to go away, but it’s no use. “She told me this morning. It was all a lie after you. She said she never took me off birth control. Just wanted me to think she did. And that she brought me to you when it failed with her so I’d believe it when she gave me the test that was also a lie.” 

Steve bends at the waist and shifts his arms so he can rest his forehead on them. Safe in the darkness there. Billy reaches over Steve, slips his fingers between the omega’s and the glass to coax it from him. So he doesn’t drop it and make a mess or get hurt. Billy leaves the glass down the length of the top of the wall, where it will be forgotten, before shuffling closer to Steve. It’s not chilly tonight in the least, and their body heat would probably make this uncomfortable soon enough. The physical closeness with an alpha he’s trusted before will hopefully keep him out of his head and the spiral down of his mood. Billy needs Steve cognizant of his pain and of who caused it. He won’t let the omega drown in it.

Cigarette half gone, Billy rolls it between index and thumb as he ponders, “But that time you were sick in the bathroom… You weren’t faking that, darlin’.”

“Nope, that was…” Steve sighs in the safety of his arms. He only continues when Billy’s shoulder gives him a nudge. “That was a lie, too. She was drugging me. To make me sick. I mean”—Steve rockets right back up, almost startling Billy, and then he’s pacing with his hands in his hair—“who does that?! We were-we were supposed to be mates and be bonded, and she-she thought this was okay? To drug me, to what, to fucking teach me a lesson?”

He whips around to stare at Billy so heartbroken and on the verge of tears. They catch the light around them and send it shimmering in Steve’s eyes. His anger steamrolls right over those tears, and he flails while shouting, “Was I ready? No! I can admit it, I can admit I was being dumb about it. But did she have to do that? Did she have to…” And then all at once the energy is gone. With his slouched back to Billy, Steve asks so softly, broken, “Did she have to lie to me like that?”

Billy almost rolls his eyes. Almost. Yes, this is exactly what it takes to dissuade omegas from something like this. When they don’t know any better but insist like brats that they do. Not an ounce of impulse control between the whole lot of them, honestly. The lying thing, now that he relates to. Billy lies plenty, all the time. Being lied to, though? Drives him crazy. Not crazy like to the edge of tears like Steve sighing feet away from him. No, more like kick the shit out of someone until he wears out the steel toe in his boot. Before the red tinges his vision, Billy shivers it out and then turns to reach for Steve’s shoulder.

The lack of a flinch in that slim shoulder strokes Billy’s ego, his confidence. Now that Steve has ranted and raved himself exhausted, now is the time for Billy to pry deeper. To reveal the wriggling truth that was always lying under frivolous leaf litter. That Nancy never cared about him, never took care of him like she should. That he’s better than that, deserves better than that. All his manipulations and vague planning have come to this.

“Seems like a cruel thing to do,” he muses in Steve’s ear. His chest is firm to the back of the omega’s left arm. Steve can elbow him away, if he wants. It means everything that he doesn’t, and Billy goes on, “Doesn’t seem like something a mate would do. You said you were supposed to be, yea?”

“I… I always thought we would.”

“Did she ever say, though?”

Billy knows full goddamn well she never. Steve is the attached one, would be the one to make future plans. Like bonds and pups. He still has to lead Steve around like treats to a dog. He’s easily led, goes tense along Billy’s chest with realization.

“… No, she didn’t.”

“Mmm, thought so.” Billy sucks his teeth and looks away, has to school himself or he’ll start laughing halfway through. It will be the final nail in this pathetic coffin, and Steve will draw all the loose ends together himself. It’s best that way, letting him think he’s come up with it. “Darlin’, when was the last time she said I love you? For curiosity’s sake.”

Been a while. A damn long while, the longer Steve’s silence drags on. Billy cranes around to stare through Steve’s amber looking glasses to the panicked insides of him. Fingers flicking through memories like filing cabinets, shaking loose the messy stacks to find the evidence of love. Because it’s here, surely, he’d been committed as always seconds ago. The evidence is here somewhere. He just misplaced it. But everything is in its place, in its space. The few scraps he scoops up are distant and faded, said haphazardly or perhaps Steve imagined them. Loneliness will do that to a person. Manufacture love where there wasn’t any. Anything to feel loved and not so alone. Unwanted.

Billy keeps his hands on Steve while slipping entirely behind him. To their right is the banquet hall on the edge of the garden. No light from the building reaches them here with a fountain and shrubs blocking the view. It’s only light from poles out here. It all provides them a modicum of privacy, although they are open to the air. To their left is just the shadows of the garden and the slope of the manufactured landscape. They are alone. Billy is sure of it, because as he encircles his arms around Steve’s waist to cradle the omega to him, he pauses to catch someone on the air. No one. So he nuzzles the back of Steve’s neck and squeezes Steve tightly when he begins to cry.

Both of Steve’s hands slap up to his face to hide the way his eyes pinch shut and his jaw trembles. Despite the bow in Steve’s back, Billy just holds him all the while. With his chest firm to the tremble already shaking Steve’s back, Billy adds his energy to it with a purr. Poor thing, poor omega with his broken heart. So Billy purrs for him with a grin trying to tug at his lips. The suit of Steve’s jacket helps to block Billy’s path to his pretty neck. So Billy settles for nuzzling brown hair instead. Just to comfort and scent him. To let him know someone is here while he cries. That Billy won’t leave him.

Snorting disgusting and wet, Steve blurts out, “I’m sorry.”

“What for, darlin’? You didn’t do anything wrong.”

A wild shrug, and then so pitiful, “I don’t know. I just feel like someone should be sorry.”

Steve throws his hands down from his face, drags the heels of his palms on his trousers, and then blankets Billy’s arms around him. Seeking comfort. Their skin doesn’t touch with their suit jackets and long-sleeve shirts under that. But the pressure of touch is there, that Steve is touching him back. It’s encouragement enough for Billy to openly breathe Steve in and start to feel him under his clothes. Steve’s arms on top of his allow it, just shift so that Steve’s hands mirror Billy’s.

Their skin finally reunites after so long, and they shiver together. Such a slight caress electrifies them so much despite the other things they’ve done together. Billy presses his fingers hard through the layers of Steve’s clothes to grip the omega like he had during Steve’s heat. And Steve bucks in Billy’s arms just like he knew he would. A motion Billy missed, wanted to cause again. Billy remembers it while fantasizing about fucking Steve the first time after his break up with Nancy. That won’t be a fantasy for much longer. Billy wants a taste now. An appetizer.

It’s a quick shuffle, then, to sort of spin and tug Steve around, dancing him back to the half-wall. Steve’s hands scramble for Billy’s upper arms, the bulge of a bicep under each sleeve. Billy walks him back, back, and farther back like that until they meet his mark. Steve trips a little when Billy walks his ass into the bricks, leans Steve against it. Not enough that he’ll topple over. Just so that he wilts on his knees, bending them and shrinking under Billy. Perfect, darling omega does exactly what Billy wants without any force. 

“Billy…”

“Yes?” He cocks his head just so. “I’m listening.”

He takes Steve by the hips right as the omega tries to speak. All Billy gets is a jump and a squeak. Because Billy doesn’t give Steve much room for that jump. So he mostly just wiggles between Billy and the bricks against his ass. 

“What are?!” He jumps again when Billy squeezes his hips and presses that much closer, back into his personal space. “What are you doing?”

“Comforting a distressed omega, what does it look like?” Billy snorts in Steve’s face when he goes stone still, blinks huge eyes slightly up at him in surprise. “It’s a lot of realizations to face in one day. She lied to you, she drugged you, she obviously doesn’t want you the same way you want her, maybe she never did.”

That’s not the point he’d expected to nail home so hard in Steve. But he knocks the air out of the poor omega with that last sentiment. Maybe she never wanted him. Never loved him. It’s the vibe Billy felt the entire time he’s known Steve. From the first moment he saw the omega here until even now, Billy is sure Nancy never really wanted him. Nancy wanted the idea of Steve: a perfect specimen of an omega. A perfect mate. If Billy were into that sort of thing, which he’s not. He wants Steve in a way that goes deeper, wants to tear him apart just so no one else can have him. So he leans forward with Steve’s melancholy heavy on his face once more and nuzzles a kiss to his cheek. Amber eyes close with Billy still near, and his eyelashes stick together.

“Hey, hey,” Billy hushes against him. “Don’t cry, you didn’t do anything wrong. It’s not the end of the world, darlin’, you don’t need her.”

Steve grinds between his teeth, “I-I don’t know what to do now. How can I trust her after this? Do you wanna know what she said after she told me it was all a lie and I said it wasn’t? That she was wrong?”

Billy pulls him that much closer, guides Steve’s head to his shoulder with a firm hand in his hair. He still has Steve by a hip, but for now Billy leaves his left hand in that thick hair. He bet Steve had pulled some strands out while having that conversation. Punishing himself whenever a voice is raised to him. Billy makes sure to keep his in check despite how he wants to grab Steve by the hair and shake him until he stops fucking crying. But he won’t. Not when he’s at heaven’s door, about to knock to steal this darling angel.

“What’d she say, baby? Tell me.”

Steve’s arms squeeze between them so he can hold Billy back. It’s sweet, and Billy gives him a purr to encourage those loose lips to keep talking. He wants to know every detail he can coax out of Steve, would love to know where this conversation had happened this morning. If she caught Steve in his room doing something silly or maybe him clinging to the toilet for dear life, throwing up the bitter medicine from her own hand. Oh, he hopes it’s that one. Hopes she yelled at Steve and humiliated him while he was at his lowest. Exhausted and sickly, thinking it was all for the greater good, the thing he wanted. At least now Steve sees the error of his ways. He wasn’t ready, won’t ever be ready if Billy gets his way.

Cuddling closer, Steve mumbles, “She said it was bullshit. Everything was bullshit. And-and like I know she didn't mean… us?” He scrunches up smaller in Billy’s arms, feeling along how deep that word goes. Bullshit. “Or at least I don’t think she meant us, but… She was so mad, and I just wanted her to stop yelling at me. I don’t understand why she had to yell at me.”

Because it’s the only way to get through his thick, stubborn head. That and because Nancy let it go so far. She let Steve fantasize, let his desires get the better of them. Nipping this whole thing in the bud at the very start, wherever that tangled end may be, is what she should have done. Billy wouldn’t allow such madness to continue. Because this is what you end up with. A mess. It’s a shame that Nancy couldn’t keep a better handle on Steve. It’s not a monumental task, he’s just a fucking omega. But it’s her loss. Because Billy tugs Steve’s head up from his shoulder, meets his eyes, and cranes forward. Steve shivers under Billy’s lips that graze over his cheek. Those kisses shift down after every one, and Billy makes it obvious where he’s going. Below, Steve’s arms tighten around him. But they make no move to stop him. 

Their lips almost brush past each other when Billy says at last, “Sounds to me like she’s a selfish bitch. She didn’t think about your feelings at all, did she baby?”

A hard swallow and Steve shakes his head.

Billy hums and goes on, “And here you are, still loyal to someone who broke your heart. I admire that about you, Steve. Your loyalty, how much you care about your alpha and just want to make her happy.”

Steve sours some and turns his head away.

“I-I can’t go back. I don’t know what else she’ll do to me, and it’s not like I can just leave. My parents would just send me right back, and I haven’t spoken to Tommy or Robin in…” He crumbles all over again and hides his face in Billy’s shoulder, despite the harsh grip on his hair fighting him. “Oh god, I haven’t talked to them in forever! Why did I stop talking to them? What… what happened? We used to be together all the time…”

Ah, he almost wants to tell Steve the truth behind that. That Steve is easier to control without a support network. Without friends to contextualize her behavior, point out the red flags. Steve is blindly loyal to Nancy, even Billy sees that. He’s a silly omega who loves too deeply, gives too much of himself to others. It makes Billy shudder in disgust. But to tell Steve the truth would reveal all his tricks. It’s best to make Nancy out to be the bad guy. It won’t even be hard for Billy to do thanks to her genuine neglect of Steve. Billy won’t even have to lie. And he doesn’t as his hand in Steve’s hair guides him back out of his hiding place. 

“From what I’ve seen of you two? She treats you more like a doll than a person.” Steve’s eyes drop immediately, an admission of guilt on her part. “She sees you as this pretty accessory to dress up and drag along with her. You’re a status symbol. A trophy.”

Billy’s hand in Steve’s hair comes slipping around to cradle a warm cheek. It flushes hotter under his touch, and Steve even lifts his eyes to meet Billy’s. So bold now, and Billy’s insides give a jolt of excitement. But he has to keep it under control. Can’t let things run away from him. Steve has to be the one to leave Nancy, has to be the one to declare their relationship over and toss that obnoxious ring on his finger away. Billy wants to dig a hole somewhere and bury the fucking thing so he’ll never have to see it on Steve’s finger again. He’ll get his wish soon, Steve only needs a little more…

Urging Steve closer, their lips almost touching, Billy murmurs thickly, “Darlin’, you deserve someone who wants you.” He glances down to cherry lips, drags his gaze back up all heavy and slow. Deliberate. “All of you.”

Steve manages to shiver, whisper on his next exhale, “Billy,” before Billy pulls Steve’s mouth to his.

He can’t recall the exact last kiss he’d given Steve that one afternoon they shared under Nancy’s supervision. But Billy has lived for the next one, this one, and he’s quick to shove past Steve’s surprised whine and lick into his mouth. Steve gives him the barest struggle, rearing his head back with Billy’s fingers curled over his jaw to catch him. Wiggling the rest of his body between Billy and the wall doesn’t help him much either. Just rubs them together through their suits until Steve jolts against him. A drop of sweetness thickens the air, and then Billy breaks them apart.

Instantly, Steve’s hands slide between them and hold Billy at bay. Not that Steve could stop him, but Billy yields all the same.

“We sh-shouldn’t.” His plea is weak, more so when Billy just pulls them together for a chaste kiss or two, breaking Steve’s resolve down further. “Billy come on, it wouldn’t be right, I’m still—”

“Are you, Steve? Are you really still with Nancy?” Billy shakes Steve by his jaw. Only once, and not as hard as he could. “It was only just today she turned your world upside down and took from you the thing you wanted most. She never gave it to you in the first place! Can you really feel the same about her knowing what you know now?”

His trust is already broken. If Steve goes back with Nancy tonight, he doubts the omega will sleep. Steve will spend the whole night wide awake, worrying if Nancy will turn on him again. Once bitten, twice shy. Every slight after this morning, every mistake Steve makes will come with a flinch. An ache. Wondering how Nancy will teach him a lesson this time. Her confidence is broken much like her mask, and now Steve peeks through the cracks to see the real her underneath. She was there all along.

Steve sinks his teeth into his bottom lip and digs his fingers into Billy’s chest. 

“But… But maybe we can talk, maybe we can work things out. I get it now, you know? I’ll stop asking about a pup, because she was right, I was wrong, we can make this work, I—”

“Steve!”

The omega’s name barked on snarled lips echoes through the garden. And Steve cowers in Billy’s hand over the anger pounded into the shapes of his name. At least it cuts off his absolutely moronic excuses. Billy couldn’t take it anymore.

Billy shakes Steve one more time, at the end of his patience with this poor fool, and shouts, “She never loved you, Steve! It’s over! Open your eyes.”

Ah fuck. Shooting off at the mouth again, letting his anger get the best of him. A man can only have so much patience! If Steve wants to be an airheaded omega who thinks all the problems are because of him, then fuck him. Doormats are only good for wiping your feet on. Voice dragging over his sigh, Billy makes to untangle them and then leave Steve to his own devices. Let the little fuck go crawling back if that’s how he wants it. Steve’s arms jolting awake and squeezing him make him think twice. 

Shoulders hunching up, Steve leans the weight of his head into Billy’s hand. Seeking comfort.

“Do you really think that? That she never loved me?”

It has to be Steve’s idea.

“It doesn’t matter what I think,” Billy almost growls. “Ask yourself that question instead. Did she ever love you? Or did she only like you?”

Steve turns inwards, clearly thinking about something specific. Maybe he recalls a red flag after all. Maybe something Nancy had done earlier on, just treating Steve like a doll even from the beginning. It could be anything. Billy isn’t a mind reader even if Steve’s face usually gives everything away. Steve shivers himself out of it, frowns with the last of his thoughts, and then tips his head back up to meet Billy’s eyes. Or get as close as he can, boldness curtailed for now. 

The last of that misplaced hope melts away as Steve deflates in his arms, mumbles, “I think she wanted to love me…” Steve’s eyes slide shut and then pinch, but he does not cry. Billy’s thumb pets him as a reward. When doe eyes open once more, they don’t try to meet Billy’s again. Hushed, Steve breathes, “What am I gonna do now?”

“Tell her you want out. Clean break.”

Steve gives a hopeless sort of wiggle.

“In case it wasn’t clear, I don’t have a job or anything. I live with her, she pays for everything. And I can’t go back to my parents, they’ll murder me for screwing this up.”

Billy snarls and snaps, “Hey! You didn’t do this.” He shakes Steve by his jaw again. “She betrayed your trust. She lied to you. This isn’t your fault.” When Steve nods in his hands, at least submitting to agreeing with Billy even if Steve can’t admit it, Billy relaxes his grip on Steve's jaw. Pleased with himself, he says lightly, “Besides, you won’t have to worry about any of that.”

Steve is so cute when he’s confused.

“Uh… why?”

Billy’s hand at Steve’s hip clutches the omega tighter to him. All while Billy leans his weight into Steve, feet sliding a little farther apart for balance. Like this he’s free to crane his head more into Steve’s personal space and fake him out for a kiss. Just like during Steve’s heat. Steve blushes like he recalls the event clearly. Billy just hums behind a grin and thumbs Steve’s warm cheek in his hand.

“Because you’ll stay with me.”

Steve’s cherry lips part and press around abandoned sentences. He eventually settles on a blurted, “Why?”

“Because you don’t have anywhere else to go. And I want you to.”

Steve’s hands on the back of Billy’s suit jacket tighten. 

“You don’t have to do that,” Steve pleads. 

“Is there any other option?” Billy flicks an eyebrow up at him. Steve needs to hurry up and fold on this like he’s folded on everything else. Just go with the flow, boy… “You can’t go back with her, darlin’, you know you can’t.”

“But… what about all my stuff? She can’t claim all of it, I moved in with her and brought clothes and stuff from my parents’ house. I don’t wanna lose that.”

“You won’t,” Billy insists, almost with a groan. Pulling teeth, honestly. “Tomorrow or in a few days, I’ll take you back to her and you can grab your shit. She can’t keep what’s yours, you two aren’t bonded, so she doesn’t own you or anything she didn’t buy for you.”

Steve turns bashful in his arms, turning to hide a little in Billy’s palm. 

“I-I can’t.” He glances up with a tiny wince. “We don’t know each other very well. It would be weird.”

“Perfect opportunity to get to know each other,” Billy points out. “Besides, I’m saying stay with me however long you need to figure out what to do.”

“How long can I stay?”

Forever. 

Billy shrugs. “However long it takes. You’ve got no other choice, darlin’. Just stay with me.”

It would be unethical to command Steve to stay. Steve may reject the command anyway and go running for the hills. But Billy isn’t above edging into a command to turn the tides his way. So he curls back into Steve’s personal space, angling his head like he’ll take a kiss. Steve keeps still for him, pliant, and makes a tiny noise behind his parted lips. Already parted for the kiss Billy denies him. Perfect. Steve’s lust for him is evident, and he’ll take that lust and hone it into hunger until Steve is fully his. Let the omega have his suspicions and propriety. Let him be gun-shy. He’ll be Billy’s in the end no matter what. It would just be nice to have fun with it, if Steve will play ball. 

“You’ll stay with me,” Billy murmurs against his lips, command sprinkled through his voice. Enough to send Steve’s eyes hazy and blinking rapidly. He groans so soft and staggers where he’s still trapped between Billy and the half-wall. The night is thick and private around them. They should go inside and depart. Right after Steve gets rid of Nancy. “Go tell her you two are through, and then I’ll take you home. You deserve a good night’s rest, hmmm?”

Steve frowns through the haze, closes his eyes like he’ll fight it. So Billy presses a chaste kiss to those soft lips, laps at the teasing gap between them, and then backs off to find slivers of amber watching him. 

Shivering in his arms, Steve blinks his head clear without Billy continuing the command. He hesitates a breath longer, enough for Billy’s fingers to tense up at his hip and jaw. But all the tension collapses in Steve, and he huddles close to Billy’s chest and shoulder. Steve’s head is a pleasant weight as he nuzzles Billy through his clothes. 

“Are you… gonna make me sleep alone?”

Billy blinks into the night behind Steve and asks, “Why would I make you sleep alone?”

“Cuz most of the time Nancy sleeps in her office or tells me to go to my room instead of sharing her bed… And I hate that.”

Steve’s suffering is much more thorough than Billy has thought. She makes him sleep alone? Denying her bed not out of punishment but just pure neglect? It doesn’t exactly surprise Billy. Certainly doesn’t offend him, they can do whatever they want with these needy omegas. It’s just another facet of Steve’s life with Nancy, another puzzle piece slotting into place. It fits with all the other tattered and ruined pieces. How Steve ever thought she loved him… Sad, little fool. 

“No,” he says lowly at last. “No, you’re not sleeping on my couch or alone.” Billy’s hand at Steve’s jaw had slipped into soft hair when Steve tucked himself to Billy’s shoulder. And now he pets the omega to reassure him. Works like a charm as Steve cuddles closer. “You’ll stay with me and sleep with me, like you should. I won’t leave you alone. Understand?”

Steve nods, but that’s not good enough. Billy digs his fingers through brown locks until his nails find scalp, and he gently scratches Steve. 

“I wanna hear you say it, darlin’. You understand what you need to do? What’s gonna happen?”

“Yes,” Steve replies, so small. 

“Tell me.”

A sigh and then almost bratty, “I’m gonna tell Nancy I want a separation. And you’re gonna take me home with you, and I’m gonna… um sleep in your bed with you. I understand.”

Steve’s distinction is cute, if bratty, but Billy lets it go with a chuckle. If he wants Steve tonight, he’ll have Steve tonight. He’ll strip the omega of clothes that stink like another alpha, ruin every inch of him, and then put him back together. With all of Nancy shook and scooped out of him, only for Billy to take her place. But deeper, sinking past porcelain skin, flesh, and all Steve’s layers until Billy is in his bones. In Steve’s everywhere and everything. Billy sighs in Steve’s hair, he’s waited so long for that, and then nudges them apart. It tickles him that Steve resists but finally relents with a pointed look from Billy. Behave. 

“Better get to it, then. Let’s go.”

They part when they step inside the banquet hall again. Billy urges Steve forward with a hand on his shoulder. Encouraging him. Steve lingers long enough to toy with the ring on his finger and throw uncertain glances at Billy through his bangs. But Billy just nudges him again and then climbs the stairs for the second floor. He wants the best view of what Steve is about to say to Nancy. And from above, he’ll be able to find her and maneuver to catch the conversation. The break-up. Billy deserves this treat after waiting patiently and not just taking Steve like he should have. It would have been easier, gratification instant. But this way is good, too. Let Steve fall in love with him a little. 

He doesn’t expect the drama to be subtle, bets Nancy will try and fail to keep a lid on Steve’s hot mouth. So he’s not surprised at all in the shadows of the second floor balconies when Steve shouts, “You never listen to me! You didn’t listen to me when I asked for a pup, and you aren’t listening to me now!” Those clustered around Nancy eye her for Steve’s poor manners and behavior. But Steve will not be cowed, now. “I want a separation!”

He tears at his hands, struggling with the ring, and then rips it off like the trash it is. Thrusting out the gold band, Steve yells with his voice thick, “I’m leaving, and you can’t stop me. You said everything was bullshit? Well”—Steve opens his fingers and drops the ring to the hardwood floor, not even looking at it to see if it rolls away—“I think you’re bullshit.”

Billy could just howl with laughter. Yes! Feed the bitch’s words right back to her! Billy wishes there were something he could cut his teeth on right now. If he could just scoop Steve up, find an empty room somewhere, and fuck him for all he’s worth. It’s a wild desire that has his eyes a little too wide, grin with too much teeth, as he meets Steve outside. He snatches the slightly dour omega by Steve’s waist and steals a hard kiss from him. Steve jumps against his chest, struggle lasting only for a whine, and then Steve’s lips slide with his and his pink tongue plays back. They’re horny teenagers all over again making out on the stone stairs leading up to the hall’s grand front doors. But they have bigger fish to fry, things Steve isn’t aware of yet, so Billy ends their kisses with a growl.

“Down, boy,” he rumbles with a slick grin, nearly purrs at the way Steve flusters and blushes. “Let’s get you home, yea? Shower all this drama off you and get you to bed.”

Steve fits in the empty spot to Billy’s right like he’d always been there. Was always meant to be there, Billy just needed to find him. From standing at the valet, to climbing into Billy’s car, and then riding in the elevator of his building, Steve occupies the space meant for him. Not as submissive as he could be, sort of reaching a hand out for some part of Billy all through the journey. He’d pet Billy’s arm a few times while in the car, just seeking touch. And while waiting for the valet and now in the elevator, their hands brush or Steve rubs their arms together. So tactile, so touch-starved. No wonder Steve is always up Nancy’s ass, the poor omega. 

They fall into bed with Steve fresh from a shower, skin and hair smelling pleasant for once. Enough for Billy to roll them so he’s on top of Steve, caging him, and rubs his scent on top of shampoo and soap. His shampoo and soap. Steve smells like his already.

“Um… Billy?”

Billy pauses where he snuffles along Steve’s clavicle, sleep shirt loose from age and the collar stretched out. Also Billy’s. His fingers sort of edge under the hem of the shirt, too, but Steve caressing his wrists has him pausing.

Mouthing one last kiss to those delicate bones, sneaking some teeth into it at the end, Billy grumbles, “What?”

Steve squirms under him. Fidgeting at Billy’s naked sides since he’d pulled them into bed in only a pair of loose shorts. Steve is the only one fully clothed, looks right in Billy’s shirt and sweatpants, though. Looks right in Billy’s bed, too. Where he belongs.

“Out with it,” he grunts, patience thinning. They probably won’t get up to anything tonight, no matter how obscene and insistent the tent in his shorts is. Steve needs time to adjust to this. To open up to him and fulfill his role. Billy has waited this long, he can wait a little more. Steve is his. “I’m not gonna punish you for speaking up or asking me to stop, so just fucking talk.”

Both of Steve’s slim hands slip up between them. Billy cranes his head away, unsure of Steve’s intentions, but allows the omega to touch his hair. Even allows Steve’s hands to pull him up so they’re level with each other again. Steve doesn’t meet his eyes, too green with Billy to do it reliably, but he tips his head up to scent the alpha’s cheek.

“Thank you for um, for doing this. I really don’t know what I woulda done if you didn’t offer this.” He forces himself to meet Billy’s eyes for only a second. Amber eyes shutter themselves, and Steve presses his own kiss to the corner of Billy’s mouth. “I mean it. Thank you. It means a lot to me.”

It’s the alpha in him that makes him swell up with pride, puff his chest out. Billy knows he doesn’t give a shit about providing or comforting an omega in distress. His instincts want that, though, and so Billy lowers himself from hovering on his knees to lie fully on top of Steve. That weight forces the omega to take his weight, to feel him pressing Steve into the bed. He won’t be going anywhere for the rest of the night, and the gentle laugh in Billy’s ear tickles him so.

How amusing, the little forest creature tiptoeing around the iron trap set specifically for him. And Billy will snap his jaws shut, already pricks Steve’s personal space with blunt edges. He won’t give Steve a second to struggle when the time comes. Steve doesn’t know it yet. That every inch of him, his every breath, his every thought all belong to Billy. He doesn’t need to know for Billy to turn his head and give Steve the chaste, gentle kisses he wants. Has probably been deprived of. Billy will give it all to him and claim that debt tenfold when it’s time to collect. He’ll claim the omega yet. All in due time.


End file.
